VHD is not supported when you create a virtual machine in Azure

This article helps correct VHD errors when running Virtual Machine in Windows or Linux.

Symptoms

When you create a virtual machine in Microsoft Azure by using an uploaded VHD, the deployment fails and returns the following error message:

New-AzureRmVM : Long running operation failed with status 'Failed'.
ErrorCode: InvalidVhd
ErrorMessage: The specified cookie value in VHD footer indicates that disk 'diskname' with blob https://xxxxxx.blob.core.windows.net/vhds/samplename.vhd is not a supported VHD. Disk is expected to have cookie value 'conectix'.

Cause

This problem occurs for one of the following reasons:

• The VHD does not comply with the 1 MB alignment (offset). The supported disk size should be 1 MB * N. For example, the disk should be 102,401 MB.
• The VHD is corrupted or not supported.

Resolution

To resolve this problem, resize the disk to comply with 1 MB alignment:

• To resolve the problem in Windows, use the Resize-VHD PowerShell cmdlet. Note that Resize-VHD is not an Azure PowerShell cmdlet.

  1. Install the Hyper-V role on Windows Server
  2. Convert the virtual disk to a fixed size VHD

• To resolve the problem in Linux, use the qemu-img command.

For more information about how to create and upload a VHD for creating Azure VM, see the following articles:

• Upload and create a Linux VM from custom disk image by using the Azure CLI 1.0
• Create and upload a Windows Server VHD to Azure

Continuing problems may indicate a corrupted VHD. In this situation, we recommend that you rebuild the VHD from scratch.

For more information, see the following article:

• About VHD

Contact us for help

If you have questions or need help, create a support request, or ask Azure community support. You can also submit product feedback to Azure feedback community.