thanks wooshman, i tried.... followed your link, downloaded the file, in the h3 folder were 5 files, imageversion-kernel.bin-noforce-rootfs.bin-splash.bin. unzipped the 3 showing as zipped, dragged them onto the stick along with imageversion and noforce. I think this is where ive gone wrong along the way... frustrating thing is, ive done a flash on the box previously, worked no problems, when i was on a windows system, but using my MacBook just doesn't seem to be doing the job properly. I am going to try and do all this using a family pc running windows, to see if i can get the box to identify the usb... at the mo, its still only booting and its getting close to me giving it a booting .