topic SnapShot access with Windows Mount Points in ONTAP Discussions

SnapShot access with Windows Mount Points

mikehhancock — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:46:54 GMT

I cannot access any of the snapshots on a Windows Mount Point. I can't see the hidden ~ directories, cannot access the previous version when I right click on the file, I just cannot access the snapshot I know is on the NetApp. I do not want to restore the entire volume and wipe out all other files just to restore 1 file.

Question is how do I access my SnapShots from the Windows host?

I have verified the same behavior on multiple systems:

Server 2008 R2

Server 2008 R2 on VMware

Server 2003 R2 hardware

Fiber Channel

iSCSI

All with SnapDrive 6.2

NetApp 3140 running 7.3.3P5

Current workaround is:

create new volume 10% larger than existing volume
mount a new LUN as a drive letter on the server
copy the needed snapshot (nightly.5) volume to volume from within the NetApp: vol copy start [-S|-s snapshot] <vol_source> <vol_destination>
open the folder where the file is that I want and copy it over the origional file
delete the new volume.
This method sux when the volumes are 3-6 TB

Thanks for any insight you can offer,

Mike

SnapShot access with Windows Mount Points

radek_kubka — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:33:22 GMT

Hi Mike and welcome to the Community!

I cannot access any of the snapshots on a Windows Mount Point. I can't see the hidden ~ directories, cannot access the previous version when I right click on the file, I just cannot access the snapshot I know is on the NetApp.

...because it is a LUN, not a CIFS share - it won't work like that.

To restore a single file, go to SnapDrive interface, select "Connect Disk" & point to the existing snapshot. SnapDrive will do thin LUN cloning in the background (or volume FlexClone if license is present) & mount a LUN clone.

Then you can browse this newly attached drive & do drag&drop restore - simple!

Regards,

Radek

SnapShot access with Windows Mount Points

mikehhancock — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:12:19 GMT

Hummmm,

Error says Incomplete path or invalid drive location

Here is my path: /vol/DFS_Backups/.snapshot/nightly.5

I was able to select the snapshot and create a SnapShot Copy but was unable to mout that as well. Same error.

SnapShot access with Windows Mount Points

radek_kubka — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 18:30:56 GMT

When connecting the drive via SnapDrive you have to drill down to the actual LUN, which should be visible within the snapshot.

So the path you are quoting looks like incomplete, indeed - there should be a LUN name at the end of it.

SnapShot access with Windows Mount Points

mikehhancock — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:21:42 GMT

When I drill down to my SnapShot Copies, they all say:

SnapShot Copy Status: Inconsistent SnapShot copy

And I cannot connect to it as a disk.

SnapShot access with Windows Mount Points

shaunjurr — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:36:06 GMT

It looks like you have some basic concepts confused somewhere.

SnapDrive basically is trying to help you do a few things "automagically" that you can easily do by hand on the CLI.

Read up on the "vol" and "lun" commands. There should be no reason to copy things when clones can easily be made. Why your snapshots are not "consistent" is also probably a matter of reading a bit more and finding out where the configuration mistakes are.

SnapShot access with Windows Mount Points

radek_kubka — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 08:45:46 GMT

SnapDrive detects these snapshots were not made by it, hence are OS-inconsistent - that's why it refuses to deal with them.

This doc is worth reading for further info:

http://now.netapp.com/NOW/knowledge/docs/snapdrive/relsnap62/pdfs/admin.pdf

lun clone command (from filer CLI) will do the trick, as it doesn't care about consistency check.

Regards,
Radek

SnapShot access with Windows Mount Points

stuartwatkins — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:50:45 GMT

Yes I agree with Radek, these snapshots were most likely setup on the Netapp SAN rather than through snap manager and therefore will be inconcistant. CIFS/NFS shares can be done this way because they dont need to me consistent, but applications (exchange, SQL etc) need to be managed by snap manager.

SnapShot access with Windows Mount Points

SARAVANAKUMARRAJU — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 23:58:19 GMT

Hi did you check the vol options nosnapdir... Set this option to off and try accessing the snapshot directory...