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Important notice: risks associated with resizing disk space

Resizing disks and partitions on production Linux operating systems is a complex and potentially hazardous process. Only experienced system administrators should undertake it. There are significant risks involved, including the possibility of data loss. You must perform a complete backup of all data on the drive before attempting any resizing operations. Additionally, be aware that the process might not work as intended, and unforeseen issues could arise. Please proceed with caution and use this guide at your own risk.
This guide applies after a VPS plan upgrade or after adding Drive Size Boost. It is not always possible to reinstall the operating system to automatically add disk space. With this guide, you can manually resize your disk and expand the existing root partition. To resize disk space and unallocated space on your disk, use SystemRescueCD. The SystemRescueCD is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM. Remember, modifying disk partitions and file systems can be risky and may result in data loss, especially if there’s a power interruption or if you perform the operations incorrectly. Always back up important data before proceeding. Here’s a general guide on how to resize disk space manually:
This is an offline procedure: the normal operating system and its services are stopped while the rescue ISO runs. The screenshots show one layout only. Before changing partitions, inspect lsblk -f and identify the root filesystem, swap, any EFI or boot partition, and any LVM or encrypted volumes. Do not apply the example partition names to a different layout.

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Access the VPS Management Portal

After the upgrade was confirmed …
  • Log in to your VPS Management Portal
  • Locate your VPS from the Services tab
  • After confirming the upgrade, Initiate shutdown (power-off) and turn on the VPS again. It is important to fully power off.

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Mount system rescue CD and boot

  • Click Mount ISO
  • Select System-Rescue-CD-6-x86.iso image
  • Select the force reset & boot checkbox
  • Finish mount by clicking “Mount ISO”
  • Enable VNC Server
Resize Linux Disk/Partition

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Open the browser console

  1. Click Start VNC, then Open Console to see console output
  2. Click into the noVNC browser window to set focus
  3. Select “Boot SystemRescueCd using default options”
  4. Press Enter to confirm
Resize Linux Disk/Partition

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Resize partition

  • Start the graphical interface: If SystemRescueCD boots into a command line, you can start the graphical interface by typing: startx.
  • Open GParted: Once in the graphical interface, open GParted. GParted is a free partition editor for graphically managing your disk partitions. Click the “Fix” button on the “Libparted Warning” pop-up window.
Resize Linux Disk/Partition In the screenshot’s example, /dev/vda1 contains the root filesystem and /dev/vda2 is swap between the root partition and the new unallocated space. Your layout may differ. If free space already follows the partition you want to grow, skip swap deletion and recreation. If a partition blocks expansion, identify its purpose first. Never delete an EFI, boot, recovery, LVM, or data partition because its number matches this example. Encrypted and LVM layouts need procedures appropriate to those storage layers. The following swap steps apply only when you have confirmed the intervening partition is disposable swap. If it is active in the rescue environment, use GParted’s Swapoff action before modifying it. See the GParted manual.
  1. Remove the swap partition. The vda2 (swap) partition will be located next to vda1 and the unallocated space. Right-click this partition and select Delete.
  2. Resize partitions: To extend the root partition (vda1), right-click it in GParted and select “Resize/Move”. Then, drag the handles to include the unallocated space and click “Resize/Move”. In the field “Free space following”, enter the size of your future swap partition.
  3. Apply changes: After arranging the partitions as desired, click the “Apply” button in GParted to apply the changes. Be aware that this process can take some time and may result in data loss if not done correctly.
  4. Create a swap partition. Right-click the unallocated space and select New. In the File system field, select Linux-swap and click the Add button. Apply this queued operation before continuing.
Resize Linux Disk/Partition
  1. Check and repair file systems: Once the partitioning is complete, it’s a good idea to check the file systems for errors. You can do this from GParted by right-clicking each partition and selecting “Check”.
  2. Update swap before rebooting: If you recreated swap, complete the next section while still in rescue mode. A recreated swap partition may have a new UUID.

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Update the installed system’s swap reference

If you did not recreate swap, skip this section.
  1. Run lsblk -f and blkid to identify the new swap UUID and the installed root filesystem.
  2. Mount the installed root filesystem at /mnt/system. For the confirmed example layout only:
  3. Replace the old UUID only in the swap entry with the new swap UUID. Do not change the root filesystem or EFI entries.
  4. If your installation has a resume/hibernation setting that references the old swap UUID, update it using your distribution’s procedure before rebooting.
  5. Save the file, leave directories under /mnt/system, and unmount the root filesystem with umount /mnt/system. If it is busy, close the processes using it first.
Final steps:
  1. Unmount SystemRescueCD
  2. Reboot from the virtual disk and verify the larger filesystem with df -hT and lsblk -f. If swap was recreated, check swapon --show.
  3. Confirm normal services work, then stop VNC access.
Last modified on October 4, 2026