The bit about the missing links sent me hunting. After reading the Key concepts document (
http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php/Key%20concepts) I had a look at the restored data and the problem comes from using the -E switch.
From the original HowTo this excluded the /home directory altogether. BUT according to the key concepts above that directory and some sub's contains critical elements for the system. So eliminating those from your mondo backup is not a good idea.
I redid the whole thing eliminating only the ibays and it all worked.
Well sort of. The restore from desktop would not restore my backup. So I went back, removed a whole bunch of non-critical stuff so it would fit on a CD-rom and voila. I'm so happy now!!
Kudo's to mondo, and the sme contributors.
Actually I ended up burning the whole thing on my new Benq DVD+R (as a CD-Rom) and it worked fine. I did get some error message but it still worked.
I will retry the backup part to the DVD again when my ibays have flowed full of backup data from my network and post the results here.
Cheers
Chris