So last night after I posted the original message I got annoyed, gadgets can do that to me :-) and I re-imaged the hard drive (NZ image). Booted it up and when it came to the guided setup the remote still wouldn't work. So I unplugged the tivo and went to sleep and angry man.

I get up in the morning, plug the tivo in and it boots to the guided setup and the remote is working flawlessly. I leave it going all day come home and still it's going great. So I'm smiling again cause the Tivo is working but still a little frustrated that the problem is so difficult to diagnose.

Anyway, thanks for everyones help/feedback on that one. I'll upgrade to Tivowebplus (if I can just understand the tutorial) just to be on the safe side.

Cheers, Jeremy.