Thanks Sebkinne BUT:
In response to relevant info in the common questions (which I have already read)
"On my first boot, I get a solid red light.
If this happens the two files present on the SD card do not match each other. Please download one of the ZIP files from here and extract these to the root of the SD card, then try again."
As I said in my stated in my original question I have downloaded and extracted new files to the root of a newly formatted SD card but I still get the solid red light issue -still nothing more.
I can't get web interface at all -would this be the case if the files on the SD card were correct (or even corrupted)? Could my pineapple actually have a hardware failure rather than software?