Why does my custom VM Image not show up in Azure Create VM Interface?

Question

I recently went through the hassle of creating and uploading a .VHD image containing a nice little Debian installation to my Azure Storage Account. It was created in Fixed Mode and uploaded as a PageBlob.

After a couple of attempts I was able to create an Image from my Blob, but I have no idea where to go from here.

Obviously, I want to create a VM instance from my image, but I can't figure out how to select my Image. I followed the NEW > Compute > Virtual Machine > From Gallery link, and there is a tab labeled My Images, but my image does not show up there.

Does anyone have an idea why?

EDIT: When I try to create a Disk from my Blob, I get the following Error:

The storage account does not support this operation. Please check the location of this storage account or create a new storage account and retry.

But the Disk is not associated with any storage account, or is it?

Answer 1

If you've uploaded your VHD you should be able to create a new disk using Virtual Machines > Disks > Create Disk this will prompt you for the url of the VHD you uploaded and allow you to specify the OS type and a name for the disk.

From there you can create a new Virtual Machine. New > Compute > Virtual Machine > From Gallery > My Disks

EDIT
I'm told by a colleague that some storage accounts do not support disks for VM's and a workaround can be to create a new VM using the portal (either from scratch or using a pre-made gallery image) this will create a storage account called something like portalvhdxxxxxxxx. You should then be able to upload your VHD to this storage account and create your disk from there.

Answer 2

I just ran into the same problem and this question helped me get around it. To provide more details, Azure VMs are not currently supported in certain data centers (such as North Central US). So if you create a storage account in an unsupported data center, you'll be able to upload vhd blobs and even create an image from it via the Azure portal. However that image will not show up under My Images when you attempt to spin up a VM from it.

It's pretty confusing but that seems to be what is happening. So if you want to store your vhd blobs in a storage account that isn't called portalvhdxxxxxx, just make sure your storage account is created in a data center that supports VMs. To figure out exactly what those data centers are, they are the data centers that you can choose when you quick create a VM directly on the portal.