Right, lets get this sorted eh. Zodiak's just sent me a second eeprom and it worked first time so the last one must have been faulty somehow. Like a lot of people reading this I've had to figure it all out for the first time and that means when something goes wrong you don't know if it's you or the eeprom you've bought.
However, all I care about now is making sure that anyone reading this knows that Zodiak is 200% reliable and trustworthy. I'm really sorry that someone who's offering such an invaluable service is taking flak for it and if I've contributed in any way to that I completely apologize.
It also seems that there's something to be learned here from transferring eeproms, clearly they're not always reliable for some strange reason which makes it problematic for the seller and buyer. However, that just means you NEED people like Zodiak to offer them because there are going to be a lot of sharks out there.
Xbox Scene got me back and running again with their brilliant tutorials, and Zodiak supplied the goods, excellent combination, I'm back online and I couldn't be happier. Isn't that what the whole underground scene is about?