I installed a few beta version of some apps and now the functionality of the Windows is broken.
Is there any way I can reset the windows to it's initial state from the portal or I have to remove it and create a new one?
If you have not backup this VM or take a snapshot of this VM, we should re-create a new VM.
As mentioned by Jason, if a backup or a snapshot was taken, you could use them to recover the VM.
You have mentioned, ‘now the functionality of the Windows is broken’, unsure if you are facing some boot issue or something else. Please do let me know if feasible, you could look at fixing the underlying issue. Or just recreate the problematic VM and not the entire Resource Group itself.
I would like to highlight the process of recovering the OS below:
Delete the VM encountering issues, keeping the virtual hard disks.
Attach and mount the virtual hard disk to another Windows VM for troubleshooting purposes.
Connect to the troubleshooting VM. Edit files or run any tools to fix issues on the original virtual hard disk.
Unmount and detach the virtual hard disk from the troubleshooting VM.
Create a VM using the original virtual hard disk.
Refer the document for more details on this process.
Related
I am new to the cloud and have a very basic questions that I am having a hard time understanding.
I have created an Azure Virtual machine and now I am installing third party software using RDP. Example: BareTail, NotePad++, a Trading Software(TWS), the goal is to replace my own Desktop/PC with the one in cloud, to help me when I am travelling.
Question: How often will i have to re-install thee s/w ? Or is it a one and done ? I am hoping only one time, but not sure.
Thank You.
In Azure, by default, if you do not attach any data disk you will have a persistent system disk and temporary swap disk.
Just do not install / do not put any data on a temporary disk and all your data will persist until you pay for your subscription or you will remove your VM with OS Disk.
Even if you remove Virtual Machine resource, Azure will not remove you OS disk, so you will able to find your data but you need to use command line tools to create a Virtual Machine from existing OS disk to recover your data, so be careful. You can use Azure Locks to protect your resources from deletion.
If you want to protect data on your disks from corruption you have also Azure Backup.
Start / Stop operations do not have any impact on your data and software if it was not placed on a temporary disk.
I use azure vm, when vm is restart then failed to start vm error and stay on Updating mode, so I don't use azure recovery services.
Probably more of a server fault question.
Couple of things you can try:
Completely stop the VM to stopped(deallocated) status, then boot it backup, if you have problem stop it from portal, use powershell cmdlet
Re-size the VM, normally would move it to another host and can jump off the problematic host
Delete the VM retain disks, create another VM from the disk.
There is also a good chance all above would fail. If you have a RTO, you might want to start preparing failover/recreate the machine in parallel.
If someone is still experiencing the stuck in the UPDATING status, it's probably your VM's Disk ran out of space, what I did is I increased the size and it boot fine.
I have an Ubuntu 14 VM on Azure to host my developed web sites. (I do not think the OS matters in the point of view the question, but never know)
I've discovered the relatively new Capture button, so for the storage price of a disk size I regularly save a "snapshot" via the Capture function (I am not preparing the image for provisioning, I mean not checking the "I have run 'waagent -deprovision' on the virtual machine" checkbox). Be aware quickly becomes pretty addictive.
The result is an image what I can use when creating new machines, its there in My Images in the wizard. This can function as a backup/rollback worflow. If I delete the VM and create a new from one of resulting image of the previously captured "snapshots". (again, no provisioning will take place)
It is possible to initiate the Capture operation on a running VM. It is not clear for me, if the result will be an image what is a template for a new VM, and that VM will start up and boot, in what state the filesystem etc will be?
Is not it a similar state than sudden power lost? If yes, then it is strongly recommended to always shutdown the VM before capturing, however this such a pain and productivity killer, so no one (including me) wants to do unless it is mandatory.
Accidentally I've switched to the new Azure portal and there the Capture UI says:
Capturing a virtual machine while it's running isn't recommended.
I have a Windows Server running as a Virtual Machine on Azure that I have installed SQL Enterprise on. I installed SQL Server onto a new drive (E:) so that the C: drive would remain for the OS.
I followed the instructions on how to use sysprep and basically capture the image to use going forward for new instances. After following these steps and deploying a new vm with this image, nothing worked. It thought SQL was installed (it wasn't). It also didn't know anything about the additional drives or VHDs.
I came across this Blog post from the Azure team and it references a powershell command Save-AzureVMImage that may be what I'm looking for with the new "Virtual Machine Image".
Ultimately what I want is to have an image that I can use to deploy a new fully functional Windows Server instance with SQL Enterprise installed and the additional VHDs being used... Can someone point me in the right hemisphere on this please...
Save-AzureVMImage until the build 2014 only captures OS disk and not the data disk, since your SQL is installed on a separate mapped drive a data disk. That will not be part of the snapshot\sysprep process.
There is something called VMImages recently launched which captures data disks along side OS disks.You will have to update Azure Commandlets to find more options while capturing Image of a running VM, Refer to the blogs below for more detailed solution
http://vishwanathsrikanth.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/windows-azure-vmimages-updates-to-clonevm-powershell-script/
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2014/04/14/vm-image-blog-post.aspx
Happy Coding !!
I am application developer and don't know much about virtual machine(VM).
however, our application is resided on a VM. frequent patch need be apply to fix/update this application. For diaster recovery, It was suggest to backup every thing on the server. so, once server is restored, no application need be re-installed and configured.
our network administrator thinks it can be done by cloning VM. but if we want to backup the clone to a tape. it would expose VM to backup drive. any one who can access to it can erase the VM and every thing woudl be gone. it is very risky.
I would appreciate it if you could let me what you think on this or any suggestion.
Cloning is perfectly acceptable.
You don't have to backup to tape... It can be done to a NAS for example, and with the proper security and setup, backups cannot be deleted by unauthorized people.
You can use any NAS and VM replication software like Veeam, Acronis or Nakivo. It will totally solve your problems. All software has various permission settings so you can control who can and who can not delete your data.