Aha, nice one Jon, quite embarrassing as I had to do it just over 24 hours ago. Well you're only supposed to have the necessaries connected, i.e. keyboard & mouse. Any other equipment, USB, external drives etc shouldn't be / doesn't need to be connected - that's assuming you've got the important system files on the hard disk installed in the computer/laptop. Once the Install Disk is up and running it'll eventually ask you whether you wish to do a standard Install or Archive & Install, if you want everything wiped go with a regular, if you want all your stuff go Archive and sort it yourself once you're logged in. Google is very helpful for this, so long as you get your terms halfway-right it'll show threads from assorted mac-forums filled with step-by-step info. Even the Apple website/user manual is pretty helpful. I just wish it literally said "If you do this, you will/won't lose all your music/videos/documents/pictures". Basically everything I'm saying I learnt last night from interweb due to major shit storm mentioned a few posts ago.