And how I was thankfully able to recover from it.

I post this in hope that others may learn from my mistakes.

One prerequisite to bricking your eee, BE AN IDIOT! ( At least, that's what worked in my case! )

I got my Ee PC 900 A last week, got EeeBuntu up and running, so far so good, I like it.

One issue is the small , 4 Gig, SSD, not enough room. So I ordered a 64 Gig Mini PCIE SSD from New Egg, ( Make sure you get the one with Read/Write in the 90/50 range, not the 40/15).

Through my research I learned that you need to make sure your Eee is running the latest Bios to make the upgrade successful. So I found the what seemed like the right procedure, and downloaded what I thought was the latest Bios version from Asus on another computer, renamed it to 900A.ROM and copied it to a USB stick. I then tranferred the file to the SD card in Eee, per the procedure, unplugged the USB, and rebooted. As the computer booted, I held down ALT+F2, it entered the Bios Update utility. But I was getting an error Message, "Searching for USB, USB Not Found" scrolling down the screen. Since the USB I had used to transfer the file was sitting there, I plugged it in. Success! It started to update! Then I got another error message, "Bios Version Too Old", I had the wrong Bios. So I shut it down, removed the USB, and rebooted, it started fine.

So I went back to my other comp, found the latest version of Bios I could for my machine, release date 3/13/09, and repeated the procedure. Put the USB in the port and started it up, again holding down ALT+F2. But this time, I didn't get any Bios update feedback on the screen, just a blank screen, ( more on that later ). "Hmmm" I thought,"something must be wrong, I had better shut down and try again", (if this narrative was a Hitchcock movie, at this point someone in the audience would be yelling at the screen, "no, no, don't open that door!"). I held the power down to shut down. As I was holding the button down, I noticed that LED on the end of the USB was flickering, indicating read/write activity. I immediately let go of the power button, but given that I am apparently mentally defective and have the physical acuity and reaction time of a lame tree sloth, it was too late. The machine shut down. When I tried to reboot, nothing, just a blank screen. I tried all methods to get the machine to boot into anything, but to no avail.

The following half hour was blur of mental distress. I'll spare you the gory details, suffice it to say there was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, rending of garments, and the traditional pouring of ashes over ones head.

When I calmed down, I went back to research on the web. I found a couple of tutorials on how to recover, one of which thankfully worked for me. That leads to the following thoughts on upgrading Bios.

Thought 1: Don't do it!

Thought 2: No really, don't do it!

Thought 3: In retrospect, I think what got me into trouble was on the second attempt when I didn't get the Bios Update prompt. I think the cause was that on the second try I started the comp with the USB already inserted, so when I held down ALT+F2, the machine immediately found the update and went to work, didn't bother with any silly prompts. So my thought is this, if the Bios update isn't going the way you think it ought to, follow Hippocrates, "First do no harm". Leave the machine running, and walk away. Give it an hour or so.

Now for how to maybe recover. These methods sort of depend on the original Bios not being to corrupted.

Method 1. (Worked for me)
Insert USB with Bios update into port.
Start computer.
Look for flashing LED on USB indicating read/write activity. If it's flashing, go away and let it run for 10 to 20 minutes, or until it hasn't flashed for a good 5 minutes. Then remove USB and reboot, should fire up.
If USB isn't flashing on restart, you can try to force by holding down CTRL+HOME.

Method 2. ( Didn't need to try this myself, but from posts on other forums, it has been successful)
Download Bios version.
Rename to xxx.BIN (where xxx is your eee model, and yes, change the extension to .BIN. In my case 900A.BIN)
Remove battery from comp, and unplug power cord from unit.
Let sit for 10 minutes.
Hold down power button, ( while still unplugged), for 30 consecutive seconds.
Let sit for 10 minutes.
Plug in power cord, insert USB, and restart.
See what happens.

Good luck, and I hope my little tale of woe didn't bore you.

No. Didn't bore me at all. It was rather entertaining really. I keep wondering when I am going to do something similar. The good thing for me is that I don't know enough to get into that kind of trouble. Don't get me wrong, I've had some classic fights with different 'puters but somehow always managed to find the right advise from the good people on all the various linux forum who are willing to help. Also, all those, like yourself, who will admit their mistakes and document them for others to avoid. For all of us potential "brickies", thank you.