OK
as many of us are a bit concerned about Audya one day not booting
or how to backup or swap out hard drives

why not this:

If you have an external USB hard drive plugged into the back of Audya when you power it up. The Audya knows it and...
The Audya will totally ignore the built in HD which may be corrupt or broke from so much spinning...
And it will boot from external.. Much like a computer can

Now that would make so much sense wouldn't it ??
Or would the USB 1.1 speeds make this impossible?
Worth a try

Carry around a mirror image external HD and then just plug it in
i would pay $100 for this update-feature

AJ, work that into OS