It's very strange Adrian. I just booted up - with ONLY the flash card reader connected (as I always have it) and no other USB thingies plugged in, and it still stuck on black screen untill I unplugged the card reader

It has NEVER done this before, and only does it since the USB HDD is installed - but it don't matter if I boot up with the USB HDD plugged in or not - as long as flash card reader is plugged in, then it gets stuck on black page...

Odd...