Be sure to pick the correct resource group (it’s hard to move a managed disk), and pick the disk type (Premium SSD, Standard HDD, etc). Once again, use a name that reminds you to attach the disk back to the same slot it was connected to in the original machine. To do this, click Create A Resource in the Azure Portal and search for and select Managed Disks. Create an OS disk from the OS disk snapshot and create a data disk from each data disk snapshot. You can generate newly managed disks from the snapshots that were just created. You cannot and do not need to do this for the temp drive. Make sure you do this process for the OS disk and every data disk of the virtual machine. Then open each disk and click Create Snapshot.Ĭonfiguring the Snapshot of the Virtual Machine’s OS Disk Identify each of the disks of the virtual machine. Once the virtual machine is shut down (deallocated), you can create a snapshot of each disk, one at a time. To create a consistent image of the original virtual machine, you must shut it down first (via Azure, not the guest OS).

Managed disk snapshots are done on a per disk basis.

Add any data disks to the virtual machine.

Create a virtual machine from the new OS disk.

Create a managed disk from each snapshot.

Create a snapshot from each disk attached to the virtual machine.

The method I am using does the following: If you are using un-managed disks (VHD files in storage accounts) then check out what managed disks offer and how to convert un-managed disks into managed disks. This technique is based on the snapshot feature of managed disks.

The official creation/ deployment methods of Azure should be used for production deployments from a generalized image. This technique should only be used for lab and troubleshooting purposes. In this post, I will show you how you can use the snapshot feature of managed disks to create an exact copy (including identity and SID) of a virtual machine.

Azure snapshot