An EBS volume I have won't detach or force detach. It's not attached to anything.

Question

I was reviewing my bill and I see I was being charged for some EBS volumes in us-east-1.

The instances they were attached to haven't been running for years and no longer exist. There are no associated snapshots.

I was able to clean up most of them  but there's one that's very stuck: vol-cd8365a4

I tried from both the command line and the GUI, and it will not detach or force-detach. I can't figure out what it thinks it's attached to as I have no instances running!

I don't see any "free" way of asking Amazon to remove this--all support options look to be paid.  This is clearly Amazon's bug--a "force detach" should always work. Can someone help me?

Thrill Science · Answer

> If you try deleting the volume what error do you get?

I can't delete it. The delete option is grayed out.

![Enter image description here](/media/postImages/original/IMXaJ3qcbMTZ6XoohK2i-4lw)

From the command line:

```
D:\repos> aws ec2 describe-volumes
{
    "Volumes": [
        {
            "AvailabilityZone": "us-east-1b",
            "Attachments": [],
            "Encrypted": false,
            "VolumeType": "standard",
            "VolumeId": "vol-cd8365a4",
            "State": "in-use",
            "SnapshotId": "",
            "CreateTime": "2009-03-17T23:20:21.000Z",
            "Size": 20
        }
    ]
}
D:\repos> aws ec2 delete-volume --volume-id vol-cd8365a4

An error occurred (IncorrectState) when calling the DeleteVolume operation: The volume 'vol-cd8365a4' is 'in-use'
```

and if I try to detach or detach-force

```
D:\repos> aws ec2 detach-volume --volume-id vol-cd8365a4

An error occurred (IncorrectState) when calling the DetachVolume operation: Volume 'vol-cd8365a4' is in the 'available' state.
D:\repos> aws ec2 detach-volume --force --volume-id vol-cd8365a4

An error occurred (IncorrectState) when calling the DetachVolume operation: Volume 'vol-cd8365a4' is in the 'available' state.
D:\repos>
```

Carlos del Castillo · Answer

It does appear from the data you have provided that there is an issue with this volume.
AWS provides support for this, but as you are aware you do have to pay extra for it.
- https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/plans/
The one benefit is that you can just pay for one month worth of support and then revert it back to the free plan as AWS only requires that you pay for support for at least 30 days.

I would recommend opening a case with them and have them help you resolve this issue.  I would also mention that you had to pay for support to fix an obvious issue with their service.
If you get them to help, maybe post here what the issue was for others.
 Hope this helps.

Cristian Pezzo · Answer

Hi there,
Have you tried to create a new EC2 instance in that region/AZ, attach the stuck EBS volume to it and then from there detach it again and delete?

Thrill Science · Answer

```
Does it show up as attached in the console?
If it does it should indicate what instance it is attached to.
```

No. It's not attached to anything. As I said, I have no instances running in this region, no stopped instances, and no snapshots.

![Enter image description here](/media/postImages/original/IM8Mw0SyJPS1eVAgCP5iOMwQ)

An EBS volume I have won't detach or force detach. It's not attached to anything.

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