Cannot upload customized Linux VHD to Windows Azure

We built a Linux VHD on Hyper-v and tried to upload the image to Azure according to the following official guide: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/linux/common-tasks/upload-a-vhd/

First problem we found is, the azure tool doesn't work at all, although I tried many times with the following command: 
azure vm image create -a cliqr-prod -o linux -p 96 -e Ubuntu10.10 -d "Ubuntu 10.10 amd64" -k 1vp/cJIUrKjNEDsvqGyDKVG 2zjOCqGGQQUf2ABF5pIQZwD+cyzly3rdlBDyZTEwHy6Nk2zKcuyq7G/CApJeIzw== -v  Ubuntu10 Ubuntu1010.vhd

See attached picture azure-upload-error1.jpg and azure-upload-error2.jpg for errors on screen.

Then we tried to use CSUpload tool to upload the image:

D:\tmp>csupload Add-PersistentVMImage -Destination "https://cliqr.blob.core.windows.net/vhd-store/Ubuntu1010-20120907-1.vhd" -Label Ubuntu10.10-20120907-1 -LiteralPath Ubuntu1010.vhd -OS Linux

Tried three times, all ended up with the following errors: 

Using the saved connection string...
Using image name 'Ubuntu1010.vhd'
MD5 hash is being calculated for the file 'D:\tmp\Ubuntu1010.vhd'.
MD5 hash calculation is completed.ning Time: 00:00:00; Throughput: 761.4Mbps
Elapsed time for the operation: 00:01:25
Creating new page blob of size 10737418752...
Upload failed with exceptions:aining Time: 00:01:45; Throughput: 0.9Mbps
System.TimeoutException: Server operation did not finish within user specified timeout '90' seconds, check if operation
is valid or try increasing the timeout.
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.Tasks.Task`1.get_Result()
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.Tasks.Task`1.ExecuteAndWait()
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.TaskImplHelper.ExecuteImplWithRetry(Func`1 impl, RetryPolicy policy)
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Tools.CsUpload.Uploader.BlobSynchronizer.<>c__DisplayClass4.b__1(DataWithRange
 dwr, CloudPageBlob b)
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Tools.CsUpload.Uploader.Parallel.<>c__DisplayClass6`2.b__0(Object )
System.TimeoutException: Server operation did not finish within user specified timeout '90' seconds, check if operation
is valid or try increasing the timeout.
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.Tasks.Task`1.get_Result()
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.Tasks.Task`1.ExecuteAndWait()
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.TaskImplHelper.ExecuteImplWithRetry(Func`1 impl, RetryPolicy policy)
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Tools.CsUpload.Uploader.BlobSynchronizer.<>c__DisplayClass4.b__1(DataWithRange
 dwr, CloudPageBlob b)
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Tools.CsUpload.Uploader.Parallel.<>c__DisplayClass6`2.b__0(Object )
System.TimeoutException: Server operation did not finish within user specified timeout '90' seconds, check if operation
is valid or try increasing the timeout.
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.Tasks.Task`1.get_Result()
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.Tasks.Task`1.ExecuteAndWait()
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.TaskImplHelper.ExecuteImplWithRetry(Func`1 impl, RetryPolicy policy)
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Tools.CsUpload.Uploader.BlobSynchronizer.<>c__DisplayClass4.b__1(DataWithRange
 dwr, CloudPageBlob b)
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Tools.CsUpload.Uploader.Parallel.<>c__DisplayClass6`2.b__0(Object )
System.TimeoutException: Server operation did not finish within user specified timeout '90' seconds, check if operation
is valid or try increasing the timeout.
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.Tasks.Task`1.get_Result()
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.Tasks.Task`1.ExecuteAndWait()
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.TaskImplHelper.ExecuteImplWithRetry(Func`1 impl, RetryPolicy policy)
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Tools.CsUpload.Uploader.BlobSynchronizer.<>c__DisplayClass4.b__1(DataWithRange
 dwr, CloudPageBlob b)
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Tools.CsUpload.Uploader.Parallel.<>c__DisplayClass6`2.b__0(Object )
System.TimeoutException: Server operation did not finish within user specified timeout '90' seconds, check if operation
is valid or try increasing the timeout.
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.Tasks.Task`1.get_Result()
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.Tasks.Task`1.ExecuteAndWait()
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.TaskImplHelper.ExecuteImplWithRetry(Func`1 impl, RetryPolicy policy)
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Tools.CsUpload.Uploader.BlobSynchronizer.<>c__DisplayClass4.b__1(DataWithRange
 dwr, CloudPageBlob b)
   at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Tools.CsUpload.Uploader.Parallel.<>c__DisplayClass6`2.b__0(Object )
Elapsed time for upload: 02:37:39
Per Microsoft support's suggestion, we tried the East US location, ended up with exactly the same error. 
We also looked at the Azure powershell script, the powershell command does not provide upload function and can only register a VM on existing VHD blob URL.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/WAVirtualMachinesforLinux/thread/2a53a24d-0043-40ae-80c9-34d04dc97eed

We also tried the following solution, but also ended up with some errors. 
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tconte/archive/2010/02/26/using-windows-azure-drive-part-1-migrate-your-data-to-the-cloud.aspx

Actually the upload can be completed but it simply cannot be added 
to Azure, and the size is not right, should be around 10GB but I can 
only see around 1GB which is the actual size of the VHD file. 
# azure vm image create —a cliqr-prod UbuntulO.10—20120908—1 --blob-url https://cliqr.blob.core.windows.net/vhd—store/
UbuntulOlO—20120908—2.vhd -—os linux


info: Executing command vin image create
warn: ——affinity—group option will be ignored
error: The blob is an unsupported VHD format. It must be a fixed-type VHD.
error: vm image create command failed
Anyone knows how to upload a customized Linux VHD to Azure? Any suggestion will be appreciated.