Hmm I'd placed a do not use sticker over the power connector. Anyway it powered up slowly, & eventually turned on (inc. original HD EPG colours). I tried to do a planner rebuild & system reset but it just said 'house keeping' for a second & didn't carry out the actions. Trying to access any recordings or pressing pause just resulted in 'system fault' message appearing.
Inserting the card regionalised the box but nothing else. I'll see if I can find a replacement hard disk as this one seems to be cooked. I was also reminded of the annoying de-interlacing on these boxes. It you watch Sky News the ticker goes from normal scrolling to judder judder depending what else on the screen.
Did the card have to be originally paired to the box for this to work? I only used this Thomson for FTA channels, it was bought used so would have previously been paired with someone else's card.