I tried those 2 commands from the shell and here is the result: hbase(main):007:0> drop_all '*' IntegrationTestBigLinkedList
dns page page_crc page_duplicate t1 tree work_proposed work_sent Drop the above 11 tables (y/n)? y 11 tables successfully dropped hbase(main):008:0> list TABLE IntegrationTestBigLinkedList dns page page_crc page_duplicate t1 tree work_proposed work_sent 11 row(s) in 0.0890 seconds Nothing on the master logs. I have many regions in transition for one of those tables. Not sure if it's related.