Hi, My motherboard of my Acer Aspire 350 had suddenly gone busted. I was told that it takes up to 2 hours to install a new motherboard. $260 for motherboard $200 for labor. For $650 I can get Acer Aspire One new with 160 G HDD. Can I take out the old Acer HDD which has all my installed program such as Quicken etc , can I use it as the Boot up Drive using USB to bypass the internal HDD of the Acer Aspire One. Do you know if the Acer Aspire One has a facility in its Bios to read from Xternal HDD. Thank you.

In a word, no. You won't be able to boot to it. You can access personal files but a full version of WinXP won't boot and run off a USB drive. This is by Microsoft design. One OS for one computer. Besides which how do you think that would solve the issue of a busted motherboard? "For $650 I can get Acer Aspire One new with 160 G HDD". Is there some reason you need to use a laptop. You have discovered why IMO they are not good values and should ONLY be purchased if you absolutely need the portability. If you don't move your computer around buy a desktop. For $699 you can get much more computer than what would come as a laptop.