Thank you.
After a few attempts I was able to do this with (some) luck. In summary the Mobile Update v5.0.6 will still always fail with "Read Terminal Failure" but the v5.5.7 recognises the phone fine and attempts to contact the update server
The problem is despite repeating the 'full' procedure with/without preloader and/or pro and/or rest of data (not needed?) , it always says it is up to date, so it does not attempt to load in the software:
Cannot post pic not enough posts, but it says after contacting update server OK...
"There is no greater software version available to upgrade device, actual version of your device is the latest"
... so it will not load the default software back.
Problem is it did this after I rested with just pro and / or preloader (no other phone partition)
So I'm sort of slightly stucknow as phone still appears dead, I did the full tests on a different PC (fresh install every driver and tools etc) which behaved properly apart from the 'you are up to date so cannot so anything' problem.
It is progress though as the Alcatel Tool does realise I have a phone connected. I did try the 'trick updater' pro_info files in the other topic but after trying all six for the 5044 I had to put mine back as the Alcatel Tool refused to 'see' the phone with the wrong one in.