After restarting the windows machine (twice?) this has magically started working.
Linda$ smbclient //linda_pc_1/documents
Password:
Domain=[LINDA_PC_1] OS=[Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium 6002 Service Pack 2] Server=[Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium 6.0]
smb: \> dir
. DR 0 Sat Aug 13 16:20:14 2011
.. DR 0 Sat Aug 13 16:20:14 2011
.DS_Store AH 6148 Sat Aug 13 16:20:19 2011
desktop.ini AHS 280 Sun Jan 20 20:43:21 2008
ImageConverter Plus D 0 Sun Apr 11 08:30:40 2010
Karen Elkins.jpg A 1163 Thu Jul 28 19:56:46 2011
My Music DHS 0 Tue Sep 23 19:27:28 2008
My Pictures DHS 0 Tue Sep 23 19:27:28 2008
My Videos DHS 0 Tue Sep 23 19:27:28 2008
Note.jpg A 35788 Thu Jul 28 18:45:41 2011
scan 537 rivercrest.pdf A 1087351 Mon Jul 11 12:27:59 2011
scan aa.jpg A 4803 Thu Jul 28 20:00:44 2011
scan copy of bill.jpg A 698921 Thu Jul 28 19:13:53 2011
scan.jpg A 11984 Thu Jul 28 19:53:59 2011
scan.pdf A 26104048 Sat Jul 9 17:07:35 2011
scankaren.jpg A 805746 Thu Jul 28 18:29:50 2011
scankaren.pdf A 870804 Thu Jul 28 18:21:56 2011
scan_537_rivercrest.pdf A 816043 Sun Jul 24 16:02:38 2011
57691 blocks of size 8388608. 36833 blocks available
smb: \>
Go figure .... some windows service that was crashing ?? still interested if anyone has any opinions.
Thanks for any help