nothing works except browser and tetris

hi i recently brought a refurbished aspire one and most things on it seem to be disabled...i showed it to a knowlegable stanger at a conference and he felt that it could be unblocked but as i'm not very technical i didn't understand much beyond that. i have a recovery usb that will install linpus linux lite...should i use this (i have no personal data on here yet)...or is it something else...nothing i've tried downloading seems to make any difference....can any of you clever peeps point me in the right direction...
oh and btw i did exagerate slightly in the title of the thread i can produce docs, but if i try and open a doc from elsewhere - usb, email etc it doesn't open properly, and as i say most other things i try and use are inaccessible...i''d like it to be my carry around laptop that i can work on and use for music and poss tv....help

thanks zoe

 

Firstly what is the model number of your aspire one?


If you are happy with Linux then Ubuntu can be downloaded from this link.


http://www.ubuntu.com/


It can be run from A USB STICK, OR INSTALLED.


Here's some extra forum links that may help.


http://www.laptop-forums.com/easily-boot-usb-t23572.html


This is another link look at the tips section to see if you still have a windows recovery, ( embedded recovery ).


http://www.laptop-forums.com/beginners-tips-mainly-windows-7-and-others-t23475.html