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[URGENT] Accidental Deletion of Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 Account – Can Data Be Restored?

Thanh Nguyen 20 Reputation points
2025-08-20T11:07:04.62+00:00

Hello Microsoft Support Team,

I am reaching out regarding an accidental deletion of our Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 account. The storage account was deployed inside the Resource Group rg-x-production, which I unintentionally deleted.

After the deletion, I recreated the resource group using Terraform, which also redeployed a new storage account with the same naming pattern. However, the data that was previously stored in the original Data Lake account is no longer accessible.

Details of the deleted resource:

  • Resource Group: rg-x-production
  • Storage Account Name: datalakexproduction
  • Location: eastus2
  • Account Kind: StorageV2
  • Account Tier: Standard
  • Replication Type: LRS
  • Hierarchical Namespace (HNS): true
  • Access Tier: (default)
  • Public Network Access Enabled: true
  • HTTPS Traffic Only Enabled: true
  • Allow Nested Items To Be Public: false
  • Cross Tenant Replication Enabled: false
  • Default To OAuth Authentication: false
  • Infrastructure Encryption Enabled: false
  • Large File Share Enabled: (not configured)
  • Local User Enabled: true
  • Minimum TLS Version: TLS1_2
  • NFSv3 Enabled: false
  • SFTP Enabled: false
  • Shared Access Key Enabled: true
  • Queue Encryption Key Type: Service
  • Table Encryption Key Type: Service
  • Tags: environment=x-production
  • Containers in the original storage account:
    • raw
    • x-bronze
    • x-silver
    • x-gold

Impact:

The deleted Data Lake account contained critical production and analytics data pipelines for our project. Losing this data is highly disruptive, and I would like to know if there are any recovery options available from Microsoft’s side.

Request:

  • Could you please confirm whether the original Data Lake Storage Gen2 account and its containers can be restored after the Resource Group deletion?
  • If restoration is possible, kindly advise the process and any prerequisites on our end.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Azure Data Lake Storage
Azure Data Lake Storage
An Azure service that provides an enterprise-wide hyper-scale repository for big data analytic workloads and is integrated with Azure Blob Storage.
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Answer accepted by question author
  1. Sina Salam 26,666 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2025-08-20T15:18:32.7166667+00:00

    Hello Thanh Nguyen,

    Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A and thank you for posting your questions here.

    I understand that you would like to recover your Accidental Deletion of Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 Account.

    Recovery is only possible if:

    Since you recreated the account, self-recovery is blocked. However, Microsoft may still recover the data to a new folder or account, but this requires manual intervention.

    I hope this is helpful! Do not hesitate to let me know if you have any other questions or clarifications.

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

    1 person found this answer helpful.

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  1. Michele Ariis 6,260 Reputation points MVP
    2025-08-20T14:07:46.7866667+00:00

    Hi, you can recover the storage account only if all of these are true: it was deleted within 14 days, it was an ARM account, the resource group exists (you’ve already re-created it), and—crucially—you did not create another storage account with the same name after deletion; if you re-created datalakexproduction already, that blocks recovery of the original. To check and recover: Azure Portal → Storage accounts → Restore (or Recover deleted account) → pick the subscription → if the old account appears in the list, select it and Restore; if it does not appear, it can’t be recovered (best-effort feature). Note: if the account used CMK, the Key Vault must be restored first; private endpoints won’t be auto-recreated. Even when the account is restored, data recovery isn’t guaranteed; actual blob/container restore depends on data-protection features (blob versioning, blob/container soft delete, etc.) that had to be enabled before deletion. If you did recreate the account with the same name, your options are: (a) delete the new one and try the Restore blade—if it still doesn’t list the old account, it’s unrecoverable; (b) open a Microsoft Support ticket immediately and ask for a backend deleted account recovery (still best-effort and only within ~14 days). For the future: put a Delete lock on the RG/storage account and enable Blob versioning + soft delete (blobs/containers) to make self-service recovery possible.

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