Thanks guys,
FN-GM yep checked the drive lettering and nothing obivious, but food for thought, as things worked a whole lot better when the machine was taken off the network so might have been trying to set the memory stick up with the same letter as a network drive, although no restrictions where applied to the max number of drives in use. I have seen memory sticks come up as drive z before which needs a longer look to actually see it.
BOAC, like the link but it presumes you can put in a PS2 mouse or keyboard, with many new machines this option just isnt available, which is where I became stuck.
the Optiplex is a nice wee beast used in the local primary school (lucky them) for which I am the unpaid computer fixer (lucky? them) and sometimes enjoy the challange of "Ranger" the educational computer security system
So anyone heard of an off line regediter on a bootable cd that can delete USB devices - now theres dangerous
Rick