diff --git a/pkg/cmd/roachtest/tests/disk_full.go b/pkg/cmd/roachtest/tests/disk_full.go
index e76cfa44e542..6631fd800537 100644
--- a/pkg/cmd/roachtest/tests/disk_full.go
+++ b/pkg/cmd/roachtest/tests/disk_full.go
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/pkg/cmd/roachtest/registry"
 	"github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/pkg/cmd/roachtest/test"
 	"github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/pkg/util/timeutil"
+	"github.com/stretchr/testify/require"
 )
 
 func registerDiskFull(r registry.Registry) {
@@ -37,6 +38,17 @@ func registerDiskFull(r registry.Registry) {
 			c.Put(ctx, t.Cockroach(), "./cockroach", c.Range(1, c.Spec().NodeCount))
 			c.Start(ctx, c.Range(1, nodes))
 
+			// Node 1 will soon be killed, when the ballast file fills up its disk. To
+			// ensure that the ranges containing system tables are available on other
+			// nodes, we wait here for at least two replicas of each range. Without
+			// this, it's possible that we end up deadlocked on a system query that
+			// requires a range on node 1, but node 1 will not restart until the query
+			// completes.
+			db := c.Conn(ctx, t.L(), 1)
+			err := WaitForReplication(ctx, t, db, 2)
+			require.NoError(t, err)
+			_ = db.Close()
+
 			t.Status("running workload")
 			m := c.NewMonitor(ctx, c.Range(1, nodes))
 			m.Go(func(ctx context.Context) error {