Thanks for the thought but I don't think this is the solution. The reason I say this is because the laptop's bios went out the window years ago and the normal Debian/Woody install on kernel 2.4.18-bf sets it up in auto mode quite well.

I've continued to 'google' since posting the request for help. It would appear that there's a ? on the inclusion (or otherwise) of i82365 in the 2.4.22-xfs kernel. Whether this is correct or not I'm not experienced enough to say.

Any further ideas are always welcome.

John