Volumes troubleshooting

_{Updated May 8, 2026} The most-seen failures with Raff volumes and the fix that works in each case. If your issue isn’t here, contact support@rafftechnologies.com.

Attach and visibility

Volume attached in dashboard but lsblk doesn't show it

What’s happening: the dashboard says the volume is attached, but inside the VM there’s no new device.Likely causes & fixes:

Kernel hasn’t picked up the new device yet. Force a re-scan:

echo "- - -" | sudo tee /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/scan
sudo udevadm trigger

Wrong VM. Volumes attach to one VM at a time — confirm the dashboard shows it attached to this VM.
Looking at the wrong device path. On Raff, volumes always appear as /dev/vd* (virtio-blk). The OS disk is /dev/vda; the first attached volume is /dev/vdb. If you’re looking for /dev/sd* or /dev/nvme*, you won’t find them — those paths don’t exist on Raff.
VM in provisioning. A snapshot or backup running on the VM can delay attach. Wait for active/passive and retry.

Cannot attach — volume in different region

What’s happening: the dashboard rejects attach to your chosen VM.Why: volumes are region-locked. A us-east volume can only attach to VMs in us-east.Fix: to “move” a volume across regions: take a snapshot, restore in the target region, then delete the original. There is no in-place region migration.

Cannot attach — VM not in active or passive state

What’s happening: attach blocks with a VM-state error.Why: the VM is in provisioning, booting, failure, or another non-attachable state. Most often caused by a snapshot or backup running.Fix: wait for the VM to return to active or passive, then retry. If stuck for more than 10 minutes, see Troubleshooting → VM stuck in provisioning.

Volume already attached to another VM

What’s happening: you tried to attach a volume that the dashboard says is already in use.Why: Raff volumes are single-attach — one VM at a time. There’s no multi-attach mode.Fix: detach from the current VM, then attach to the new one. For multi-VM shared access, use Object Storage instead.

Mount and filesystem

mount fails with wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock

What’s happening: the device exists but mount rejects it.Why: the volume isn’t formatted yet. New volumes (or volumes you chose Manually Format & Mount for at create time) come up raw.Fix: format first:

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/vdb     # default Linux
# or
sudo mkfs.xfs /dev/vdb      # better for large/parallel volumes

Then mount and add to /etc/fstab. See Attach to a VM for the full flow.

Boot drops to emergency shell after adding a volume to /etc/fstab

What’s happening: the VM rebooted and now hangs at “A start job is running for…” or drops to emergency mode.Why: the /etc/fstab entry references a volume that isn’t present at boot — typo, wrong UUID, or volume detached.Fix path: see Recover a locked-out VM → Single-user mode via GRUB. Boot in single-user, mount root read-write, fix the bad fstab line, reboot.Prevention: always include nofail and x-systemd.device-timeout=10 in the fstab options — boot won’t hang on a missing volume:

UUID=…  /mnt/data  ext4  defaults,nofail,x-systemd.device-timeout=10  0  2

Wrong device name in /etc/fstab after a reboot

What’s happening: you used /dev/vdb in fstab, the volume now appears as /dev/vdc (or vice versa), and the mount fails.Why: device letters can shift if multiple volumes are attached and the order changes.Fix: always reference volumes in /etc/fstab by UUID instead of /dev/vd*:

sudo blkid /dev/vdb
# /dev/vdb: UUID="b1234…" TYPE="ext4"

Then in fstab: UUID=b1234… /mnt/data ext4 defaults,nofail 0 2.

Permission denied writing to a freshly-mounted volume

What’s happening: mount succeeds but the user can’t write to the mount point.Why: newly-formatted ext4 / xfs volumes are owned by root:root with 0755 permissions. Your application’s user can’t write.Fix: chown after mount:

sudo chown -R appuser:appuser /mnt/data
sudo chmod 0755 /mnt/data

Resize

Increased size in dashboard but df -h shows old size

What’s happening: the volume is bigger at the block-device level (lsblk confirms) but the filesystem doesn’t see it.Why: dashboard resize grows the block device. The filesystem inside the VM is unchanged until you tell it to grow.Fix (Linux):

sudo partprobe /dev/vdb       # re-read disk size
sudo growpart /dev/vdb 1      # only if you partitioned
sudo resize2fs /dev/vdb1      # ext4 — pass the partition or device
# or
sudo xfs_growfs /mnt/data     # xfs — pass the mountpoint

Fix (Windows): Computer Management → Disk Management → right-click the volume → Extend Volume.

Increase size action is greyed out / missing

What’s happening: the volume row’s actions menu doesn’t show Increase size.Why: size increases are only available while the volume is attached to a VM.Fix: attach the volume to a VM first, then resize.

Need to make a volume smaller

Not supported. Volume resize is one-way — grow only.Workaround: create a new smaller volume, copy what you need over, swap mount points / fstab entries, delete the old volume.

Detach and delete

Please wait! VM is not ready to detach volume

What’s happening: the dashboard blocks detach with a top-of-page warning.Why: the VM is in a non-detachable state — usually provisioning because a snapshot or backup is running.Fix: wait for the VM to return to active or passive, then retry. See Detach from a VM → If the VM is in provisioning.

umount fails with target is busy

What’s happening: trying to unmount a volume but a process is holding files open.Fix:

sudo lsof +D /mnt/data       # list what's open
sudo fuser -m /mnt/data      # list processes
# Stop the offending services / processes, then:
sudo umount /mnt/data

Worst case, if you can’t stop the process, lazy unmount then power-cycle the VM:

sudo umount -l /mnt/data

Volume still being billed after I deleted my VM

What’s happening: you destroyed a VM but the volume is still in your account, accruing charges.Why: deleting a VM detaches any attached volumes; it does not delete them. Volumes survive VM destroy by design.Fix: delete the volume from the Volumes tab. The unused subscription time is credited back to your account balance.

Deleted a volume by accident — can I recover?

What’s happening: clicked Delete on a volume you actually needed.Reality: delete is permanent. Once confirmed, the data is gone. You can’t undelete from the dashboard.Recovery options:

From a volume snapshot taken before delete — create a new volume from the snapshot.
From a copy elsewhere (Object Storage, off-platform backup, database dump).
If neither — the data is unrecoverable. This is why production volumes should run on a snapshot schedule.

State and identity

Two volumes have the same name

What’s happening: the volume list shows two rows with the same display name.Why: Raff doesn’t enforce unique names across volumes — names are display labels, not identifiers.Fix: rename one (use the configure action) or identify them by their UUIDs in API responses. For long-term clarity, adopt a naming convention like <env>-<purpose>-<n> (e.g. prod-db-data-01).

Volume status is provisioning for a long time

What’s happening: a freshly-created or freshly-attached volume sits in Provisioning for several minutes.Likely causes:

Large size — initial provisioning takes longer for large volumes.
Hypervisor pressure — the underlying node is busy.
Auto-format running — formatting a 1000 GiB volume takes a few minutes.

Fix: wait 5-10 minutes. If still stuck, contact support with the volume ID and the VM ID.

Still stuck?

Contact support@rafftechnologies.com with:

The volume ID (from the volumes list URL or Get volume API response)
The attached VM ID (if applicable)
The exact error message and timestamp
Steps already tried
Relevant logs from inside the VM (journalctl -xe, dmesg | tail -50)

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Volumes troubleshooting

Attach and visibility

Mount and filesystem

Resize

Detach and delete

State and identity

Still stuck?

​Attach and visibility

​Mount and filesystem

​Resize

​Detach and delete

​State and identity

​Still stuck?

Attach and visibility

Mount and filesystem

Resize

Detach and delete

State and identity

Still stuck?