Another update - swapped the hard drive onto the last connector. Rebuilding, and this time I get the Writing inode tables message on the serial port. Don't recall seeing that last time, so this is a step up. And the 29789 number sounds like the same as Ross, so I'm cautiously optimistic...
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Rory
MkIIa, blue lit buttons, memory upgrade, 1Tb in Subaru Forester STi
MkII, 240Gb in Mark Lord dock
MkII, 80Gb SSD in dock