How do I delete an Azure storage account containing a leased blob?

Question

I was playing with Windows Azure durable virtual machines. In the end, I deleted the virtual machine (successfully) and tried to delete the associated storage account.

Answer 1

Sometimes we via the new portal to delete azure storage account, but we can’t delete it and get this error:” Failed to delete storage account 'jason1disks796'. Error: The storage account cannot be deleted due to its artifacts being in use. “

We can use PowerShell to list all the VHD blobs of the storage account(ARM module):

PS > Login-AzureRmAccount
PS > $RGName = "jason1"
PS > $SAName = "jason1disks796"
PS > $ConName = "vhds"
PS > $TempObj = New-Object -TypeName PSCustomObject
PS > $TempObj |Add-Member -Name BlobName -MemberType NoteProperty -Value $null
PS > $TempObj |Add-Member -Name LeaseState -MemberType NoteProperty -Value $null
PS > $Keylist = Get-AzureRmStorageAccountKey -ResourceGroupName $RGName -StorageAccountName $SAName
PS > $Key = $Keylist[0].Value
PS > $Ctx = New-AzureStorageContext -StorageAccountName $SAName -StorageAccountKey $Key
PS > Get-AzureStorageContainer -Context $ctx
CloudBlobContainer : Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Blob.CloudBlobContainer
Permission         : Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Blob.BlobContainerPermissions
PublicAccess       : Off
LastModified       : 1/19/2017 1:27:21 AM +00:00
ContinuationToken  :
Context            : Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Commands.Common.Storage.AzureStorageContext
Name               : vhds
PS > $List = Get-AzureStorageBlob -Blob *.vhd -Container $ConName -Context $Ctx
PS > $List | ForEach-Object { $TempObj.BlobName = $_.Name; $TempObj.LeaseState = $_.ICloudBlob.Properties.LeaseState; $TempObj }

BlobName              LeaseState
--------              ----------
SQL20170119092405.vhd     Leased

PS > Get-AzureStorageBlob -Blob * -Container $con -Context $ctx | Remove-AzureStorageBlob
PS > Remove-AzureRmStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName $RGname -Name $SAName

If your storage account is in the ASM module, you can use this script to remove storage account:

Add-AzureAccount
$SAName = "jason1161"
$ConName = "vhds"
$TempObj = New-Object -TypeName PSCustomObject
$TempObj |Add-Member -Name BlobName -MemberType NoteProperty -Value $null
$TempObj |Add-Member -Name LeaseState -MemberType NoteProperty -Value $null
$Keylist = Get-AzureStorageKey -StorageAccountName $SAName
$Key = $Keylist.primary
$Ctx = New-AzureStorageContext -StorageAccountName $SAName -StorageAccountKey $Key
$List = Get-AzureStorageBlob -Blob *.vhd -Container $ConName -Context $Ctx
$List | ForEach-Object { $TempObj.BlobName = $_.Name; $TempObj.LeaseState = $_.ICloudBlob.Properties.LeaseState; $TempObj }
PS > Get-AzureStorageBlob -Blob * -Container $con -Context $ctx | Remove-AzureStorageBlob
PS > Remove-AzureStorageAccount -Name $SAName

Besides, there is another scenario, there is no container or blob in this storage account (an empty storage account, we can’t find blob or container in this storage account via PowerShell or portal), when we use portal to delete the storage account, and the error message” Failed to delete storage account 'jason1disks796'. Error: The storage account cannot be deleted due to its artifacts being in use”. In this scenario we can create a new VM and specify the storage account to the problematic Storage Account, then delete it again.