How to Fix Timeout While Mounting LUN in NetApp SnapDrive

When you are trying to mount a LUN (by using Connect Disk) in SnapDrive, you may get an error saying “A timeout of 120 secs elapsed while waiting for volume arrival notification from the operating system”.

Figure - SnapDrive timeout when connecting to a LUN

This generally occurs when you have created a LUN using the NetApp System Manager first, and then tried to connect to it in SnapDrive.

The reason for this error message is that when SnapDrive is connecting to a disk, it expects to see a formatted partition being connected – and when this doesn’t occur, it doesn’t know what to do and times out.

Clean up the mess

As the LUN mapping has failed half way through, you need to remove the igroups that have been added to the LUN, otherwise you will receive a “The specified LUN /vol/xxx is already mapped to at least one initiator” error.

1. Connect to the filer using telnet
2. Run the following command:

   lun unmap /vol/YourLUNName youriGroupName

3. You will get a message back saying the igroup has been unmapped from the LUN

Connect the LUN again

1. Open SnapDrive and start connecting to your LUN again, as the process starts to occur you will see the following status messages appearing:
   

   Figure - LUN Status Message
2. At this point, open up Computer Management and then in the left navigation pane select Disk Management
3. You will notice a new, unformatted drive appear. If you don’t see it keep refreshing until it appears
   

   Figure - In Disk Management you will notice the LUN disk appear
4. You will need to be quick (you only have 120 seconds until time out remember), so initialize the disk
   

   Figure - Right click on the disk and select Initialize Disk
5. After the disk has initialized, right click on the empty drive space and choose Format | Follow the prompts to format the disk and specify the drive letter you choose when connecting to the LUN using SnapDrive
   

   Figure - Specify a drive letter for the new LUN, matching the one in SnapDrive
6. SnapDrive should now discover the disk and map it correctly

To prevent this occurring, create your LUN’s using the SnapDrive interface instead of NetApp System Manager, as SnapDrive will format the LUN on creation.