How can a failed EBS backed EC2 Micro Instance be recovered?

We have recently been experimenting with a micro instance to undertake a specific task. Last night, for no apparent reason, the EBS backed micro instance failed with no warning. We can no longer access the server through the Terminal (MacBook) and Monitoring show 100% utilisation (flat开发者_StackOverflow). We took a snapshot and created a new volume, but cannot attach this to the new micro instance, as its EBS backed. We are now in the process of setting up a new micro instance from scratch which is taking a lot of effort due to having to re-install software and configure them for our purpose

What are the best practices for running EBS backed micro instances? How can we avoid the same happening again?

You can certainly attach a new EBS boot volume to an EBS-backed instance:

1. Stop the instance (NOT terminate).
2. Snapshot its' boot volume.
3. Create a new volume from the snapshot.
4. Detach the original boot volume, and attach your new one.
5. Start the instance.

However, in your case, you don't know why the instance failed, so how do you know that a new boot volume created from a snapshot of the failed one will work? Did you try rebooting the instance? It sounds as though the OS might have panicked/bluescreened (you don't mention which OS is installed) or possibly just the SSH session daemon died, in which case a simple reboot might be all that is needed.