If a managed disk is deleted using terraform, is there anyway for Microsoft to recover that disk on the backend somehow?

Question

If a managed disk is deleted using terraform, is there anyway for Microsoft to recover that disk on the backend somehow?

Admin Joe Davenport 0

I had a disk that was part of a storage pool and the disk got deleted in error. Is there anyway to recover that managed disk from microsoft?

Mounika Reddy Anumandla 5,300 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-04-21T05:04:32.3533333+00:00
Hi Admin Joe Davenport,

I understand that’s a tough situation, but Microsoft does not provide a public or guaranteed recovery path for managed disks once they are hard deleted unless you’ve got Azure Backup or Snapshot configured as mentioned by hossein jalilian.

In Future, I’d definitely recommend:

Enabling soft delete for managed disks (where supported).

Creating snapshots before every Terraform apply.https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/language/meta-arguments/lifecycle

Adding a prevent_destroy = true lifecycle rule in Terraform for disks and critical resources.

Hope the information provided by hossein jalilian is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and "Upvote it."

1 answer

Your answer

Mounika Reddy Anumandla 5,300 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-04-21T05:04:32.3533333+00:00

Hi Admin Joe Davenport,

I understand that’s a tough situation, but Microsoft does not provide a public or guaranteed recovery path for managed disks once they are hard deleted unless you’ve got Azure Backup or Snapshot configured as mentioned by hossein jalilian.

In Future, I’d definitely recommend:

Enabling soft delete for managed disks (where supported).

Creating snapshots before every Terraform apply.https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/language/meta-arguments/lifecycle

Adding a prevent_destroy = true lifecycle rule in Terraform for disks and critical resources.

Hope the information provided by hossein jalilian is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and "Upvote it."

Answer 1

Thanks for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

If a managed disk in Azure is deleted using Terraform (or any method), Microsoft does not provide a built-in way to recover that disk from the backend unless you have proactively created a backup or snapshot of the disk. Once a managed disk is deleted, it cannot be undeleted or restored by Microsoft support, as confirmed by Microsoft documentation.

In some case, Microsoft support was able to recover a disk within a very short window after deletion, but this is not guaranteed and is not a documented or reliable recovery method

Please don't forget to close up the thread here by upvoting and accept it as an answer if it is helpful

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If a managed disk is deleted using terraform, is there anyway for Microsoft to recover that disk on the backend somehow?

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