How to deal with the "PD Missing" message
PD (Physical Drive) Missing... red message found in the RAID BIOS
Other possible symptoms:
- One or more drives in Unconfigured Bad (UB) or Offline state or no longer detected by the Intel® RAID Controller
- Virtual drive (VD) is offline
| Note |
Ensure that the data is backed up. |
This happens when the Intel RAID Controller lost access (permanent or temporary) to one or more drives belonging to a RAID array. Possible reasons are surprise removal followed by re-insertion of the same drive, bad or loose cable, bad or failing drive, and so on. If the access is lost only temporarily, the drive may become Unconfigured Bad (UB).
It is important to understand and identify the cause to determine the appropriate action. For example, if a drive became UB due to surprise removal or bad cable and the drive is known to be good, it is safe to continue using the same drive by making it Unconfigured Good (UG) and put it back to the array for rebuild. However, if the drive is failing (still functional but fails intermittently), it should be replaced with a new drive and not to continue using it as it's likely going to fail again soon.
An effective way to identify the possible cause is by looking at the event histories from the RAID log or Intel® RAID Web Console utility.
Other possible troubleshooting methods that may require additional hardware/system for testing:
- Check the health of the drive using diagnostic utilities from the drive vendor, for example, the Intel® Memory and Storage Tool (Intel® MAS).
- Check for loose/bad cable by swapping with a known good cable.
After the cause or failing part is determined
For bad or failing drive:
- Replace the drive to rebuild the array. By default, rebuild should start automatically after insertion of a new drive to the same slot.
- If available, it is also possible to use other UG drive to rebuild the array. In this case, it is required to manually start the rebuild.
For non-drive–related causes:
- Replace the failing parts such as cable as needed.
- Make all of the UB drives as UG.
- Import the foreign configuration to start the rebuild.
- If import is not possible, clear the foreign configuration and manually start the rebuild.
| Note |
The time required for the rebuild largely depends on the size of the VD. |
If uncertain, contact Intel Customer Support for assistance.