SEV-A URGENT: Accidental VM Deletion – Partial Disk Presence – Arc SQL Resources Still Visible – Immediate Recovery Assistance Required

Earlier today, a critical virtual machine (PFDev3) hosting our development environment was accidentally deleted in the West Europe region.

This VM contained:

• Full development environment
• Multiple SQL Server instances
• Associated application workloads

At the time of deletion:

• No backups or snapshots were configured
• Data disks and network configuration were also deleted

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Current Observations (Inconsistent State)

Despite the deletion, the environment shows a partially inconsistent resource state:

• Some managed disks still appear in the subscription
• Azure Arc–enabled SQL Server instances and databases are still visible and reporting as "Succeeded"/online
• Certain related resources (NIC, public IP, NSG, etc.) remain present
• However, the underlying compute (VM) and parts of storage/network configuration appear missing

This suggests a potential partial deletion or delayed resource cleanup scenario

---

Business Impact

• Loss of primary development environment
• Potential loss of critical SQL data
• No immediate restore path due to lack of backups

Given the recency of the incident (occurred today), this is being treated as Severity A (business-critical outage).

---

Urgent Questions / Assistance Required

We kindly request immediate support to clarify and assist with the following:

Recovery Possibilities

• Is it still possible to recover the deleted VM or associated managed disks?
  • Are there internal or backend recovery mechanisms available shortly after deletion?
  Retention / Soft-Delete Behavior

  - Does Azure provide any temporary retention or soft-delete capability for:
  
        - Virtual machines
  
              - Managed disks
  
                    - Related compute resources
  
                    Rollback Feasibility
  
                       - Given the deletion occurred only a few hours ago, is there any possibility of:
  
                             - Rolling back the deletion
  
                                   - Reconstructing the VM from existing artifacts
  
                                   Arc SQL Visibility
  
                                      - Why are Azure Arc SQL instances and databases still visible and reporting as active?
  
                                         - Does this indicate underlying data still exists and may be recoverable?
  
                                         Immediate Actions Guidance
  
                                            - What actions should we avoid to prevent permanent data loss?
  
                                               - What steps should we take immediately to maximize recovery probability?
  

---

Supporting Evidence (Extract)

Below is a relevant subset from az resource list showing:

• Remaining network resources
• Azure Arc SQL instances and databases
• Some disk artifacts still present

Shell

az resource list --subscription <redacted> -g SviluppoDevOps -o table

Mostra più linee

(Full output available in original submission if needed)

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Key Remaining Resources Detected

• Managed disks (e.g., PFDev3_DataDisk_0, PFDev3_OsDisk_*)
• Azure Arc SQL instances:
  • PFDev3_SQL2022
    • PFDev3_SQL2025
      • PFDev3
      • Numerous SQL databases still listed under Arc
      • Network interface: pfdev3446
      • Public IP and NSG resources

---

Request

Given the criticality and time sensitivity, we request:

• Immediate escalation to Azure engineering (compute/storage)
• Guidance on possible backend recovery paths
• Confirmation of any recovery window still available

---

We are available to provide additional details or execute recovery steps immediately upon guidance.

Thank you for your urgent support.Earlier today, a critical virtual machine (PFDev3) hosting our development environment was accidentally deleted in the West Europe region.

This VM contained:

• Full development environment
• Multiple SQL Server instances
• Associated application workloads

At the time of deletion:

• No backups or snapshots were configured
• Data disks and network configuration were also deleted

---

Current Observations (Inconsistent State)

Despite the deletion, the environment shows a partially inconsistent resource state:

• Some managed disks still appear in the subscription
• Azure Arc–enabled SQL Server instances and databases are still visible and reporting as "Succeeded"/online
• Certain related resources (NIC, public IP, NSG, etc.) remain present
• However, the underlying compute (VM) and parts of storage/network configuration appear missing

This suggests a potential partial deletion or delayed resource cleanup scenario

---

Business Impact

• Loss of primary development environment
• Potential loss of critical SQL data
• No immediate restore path due to lack of backups

Given the recency of the incident (occurred today), this is being treated as Severity A (business-critical outage).

---

Urgent Questions / Assistance Required

We kindly request immediate support to clarify and assist with the following:

Recovery Possibilities

• Is it still possible to recover the deleted VM or associated managed disks?
  • Are there internal or backend recovery mechanisms available shortly after deletion?
  Retention / Soft-Delete Behavior

  - Does Azure provide any temporary retention or soft-delete capability for:
  
        - Virtual machines
  
              - Managed disks
  
                    - Related compute resources
  
                    Rollback Feasibility
  
                       - Given the deletion occurred only a few hours ago, is there any possibility of:
  
                             - Rolling back the deletion
  
                                   - Reconstructing the VM from existing artifacts
  
                                   Arc SQL Visibility
  
                                      - Why are Azure Arc SQL instances and databases still visible and reporting as active?
  
                                         - Does this indicate underlying data still exists and may be recoverable?
  
                                         Immediate Actions Guidance
  
                                            - What actions should we avoid to prevent permanent data loss?
  
                                               - What steps should we take immediately to maximize recovery probability?
  

---

Supporting Evidence (Extract)

Below is a relevant subset from az resource list showing:

• Remaining network resources
• Azure Arc SQL instances and databases
• Some disk artifacts still present

Shell

az resource list --subscription <redacted> -g SviluppoDevOps -o table

Mostra più linee

(Full output available in original submission if needed)

---

Key Remaining Resources Detected

• Managed disks (e.g., PFDev3_DataDisk_0, PFDev3_OsDisk_*)
• Azure Arc SQL instances:
  • PFDev3_SQL2022
    • PFDev3_SQL2025
      • PFDev3
      • Numerous SQL databases still listed under Arc
      • Network interface: pfdev3446
      • Public IP and NSG resources

---

Request

Given the criticality and time sensitivity, we request:

• Immediate escalation to Azure engineering (compute/storage)
• Guidance on possible backend recovery paths
• Confirmation of any recovery window still available

---

We are available to provide additional details or execute recovery steps immediately upon guidance.

Thank you for your urgent support.