diff --git a/tests/qemu-iotests/061 b/tests/qemu-iotests/061
index 1df887a01d..e191e65d5f 100755
--- a/tests/qemu-iotests/061
+++ b/tests/qemu-iotests/061
@@ -58,8 +58,8 @@ echo
 echo "=== Testing dirty version downgrade ==="
 echo
 IMGOPTS="compat=1.1,lazy_refcounts=on" _make_test_img 64M
-$QEMU_IO -c "write -P 0x2a 0 128k" -c flush -c abort "$TEST_IMG" 2>&1 \
-    | _filter_qemu_io
+$QEMU_IO -c "write -P 0x2a 0 128k" -c flush \
+         -c "sigraise $(kill -l KILL)" "$TEST_IMG" 2>&1 | _filter_qemu_io
 $PYTHON qcow2.py "$TEST_IMG" dump-header
 $QEMU_IMG amend -o "compat=0.10" "$TEST_IMG"
 $PYTHON qcow2.py "$TEST_IMG" dump-header
@@ -92,8 +92,8 @@ echo
 echo "=== Testing dirty lazy_refcounts=off ==="
 echo
 IMGOPTS="compat=1.1,lazy_refcounts=on" _make_test_img 64M
-$QEMU_IO -c "write -P 0x2a 0 128k" -c flush -c abort "$TEST_IMG" 2>&1 \
-    | _filter_qemu_io
+$QEMU_IO -c "write -P 0x2a 0 128k" -c flush \
+         -c "sigraise $(kill -l KILL)" "$TEST_IMG" 2>&1 | _filter_qemu_io
 $PYTHON qcow2.py "$TEST_IMG" dump-header
 $QEMU_IMG amend -o "lazy_refcounts=off" "$TEST_IMG"
 $PYTHON qcow2.py "$TEST_IMG" dump-header
diff --git a/tests/qemu-iotests/061.out b/tests/qemu-iotests/061.out
index a683f46a12..b16bea95d2 100644
--- a/tests/qemu-iotests/061.out
+++ b/tests/qemu-iotests/061.out
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ No errors were found on the image.
 Formatting 'TEST_DIR/t.IMGFMT', fmt=IMGFMT size=67108864
 wrote 131072/131072 bytes at offset 0
 128 KiB, X ops; XX:XX:XX.X (XXX YYY/sec and XXX ops/sec)
-./common.config: Aborted                 (core dumped) ( exec "$QEMU_IO_PROG" $QEMU_IO_OPTIONS "$@" )
+./common.config: Killed                  ( exec "$QEMU_IO_PROG" $QEMU_IO_OPTIONS "$@" )
 magic                     0x514649fb
 version                   3
 backing_file_offset       0x0
@@ -215,7 +215,7 @@ No errors were found on the image.
 Formatting 'TEST_DIR/t.IMGFMT', fmt=IMGFMT size=67108864
 wrote 131072/131072 bytes at offset 0
 128 KiB, X ops; XX:XX:XX.X (XXX YYY/sec and XXX ops/sec)
-./common.config: Aborted                 (core dumped) ( exec "$QEMU_IO_PROG" $QEMU_IO_OPTIONS "$@" )
+./common.config: Killed                  ( exec "$QEMU_IO_PROG" $QEMU_IO_OPTIONS "$@" )
 magic                     0x514649fb
 version                   3
 backing_file_offset       0x0