assume we have 3 logical volume: lv1 40GB, lv2 8GB, lv3 200GB in volume group called data . we want to resize lv3 become 180GB. here is the steps: booting to single mode enter init 1 (type: init 1) umount logical volume that you want to resize, e.g. umount /dev/data/lv3 check the filesystem: e2fsck -f /dev/data/lv3 resize the filesystem: resize2fs -p /dev/data/lv3 180G lvreduce -L -20G /dev/data/lv3 Ref: askubuntu.com