so any clues on what I should do to get armory working again?

Bitcond is running fine and is in sync.
Armory just refuses to connect, and get stuck at 'preparing databases'.

As I said ive wiped out the old databases folder.
A new databases folder has been created, but is empty.

Bitcoin data is in c:\Bitcoin and has 60Gb free.
Armory data is in M:\Armory and has 1.5Tb free.