Heehee I sound like an idiot (probably quite acurate too ), I checked the caps key wasnt on and I have never changed the password since setting it in the first place and I have frequently su'd whilst trying to set up the net connection so i know the password was correct, and like I said in my original post i re-typed it many times very slowly.

In answer to gore, yeps I mean no services allowed by the firewall and as for the backup nope to all of those at the moment, however once I have formatted one of the old computers FTP will be possible.

Thanks for the single user info Phatdee ill try that when I get in

I wasnt sure if it was a security problem or not but I wanted to make damn sure if it was it got sorted.