Search Service App deleted, How to remove databases and stop services

Question

I'm working on SharePoint 2013, configuring the Search Service. I created a Search Service Application through Powershell with some wrong setting and I tried to delete everything to start over again:

$sa = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication
$sa.Delete()

But! The services:

• SharePoint Server Search
• Search Query and Site Settings Service
• Search Host Controller Service

are still running and the four databases associated with the app are still there. The commands Powershell to remove the dbs (e.g. Remove-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlDatabase) cannot run because the application is no longer there.

Can I remove the dbs from SQL Management Studio and Stop the services from SP? Or is there a proper way to do that?

Thank you!!

Answer 1

The search services are farm services so should remain. To remove the associated databases you could have tried this
Remove-SPServiceApplication $spapp -RemoveData