Fix Unstartable Azure VMs

Q. I have a VM in Azure that I am unable to start, what can I do?

A. In any system things can happen and I've heard of instances where a VM gets stuck and cannot be started. I would try the following items in order to try and resolve the problem:

1. Shutdown the VM from the Azure portal then start. This causes the VM to be deprovisioned from the Azure fabric and then reprovisioned.
2. Shutdown the VM from the Azure portal, perform a resize of the VM, e.g. from an A2 to A4, then try and start it.
3. Shutdown the VM from the Azure portal, make a note of the VMs details (such as cloud service, endpoints, virtual network, size) and delete the VM but keep its disks. Create a new VM using the existing disks.
4. Shutdown the VM from the Azure portal, make a note of the VMs details (such as cloud service, endpoints, virtual network, size) and delete the VM but keep its disks. Delete the disk for the OS (but not the VHD in the storage account). Select Virtual Machines in the portal, select the Disks tab, and then delete the OS disk but select the option to Retain the associated VHD as shown.
   
   Create a new disk from the existing VHD via the Creation action and point to the existing VHD. Create a new VM using the existing disks.
5. If you still cannot start the VM download the VHD to on-premises and create a Hyper-V VM using the VHD and troubleshoot locally.