International Business Machines Corporation

Enrique E Aviles

Edwin Ralph Childers

Alan A Fennema

Dave P McReynolds

A rotary positioner is rotatably mounted upon a reciprocating carriage of a optical disk drive. To detect and indicate one of a plurality of possible orientations of the disk drive, a side bias force is applied to the rotary positioner in a direction orthogonal to the radius of the disk drive. It has been found that each orientation has a side bias at which gravity effects are removed from the rotary positioner. At these points of gravity accommodation, certain instabilities in servo operation occur. Since each orientation requires a different side bias force to create the respective servo instabilities, the side bias force causing such instability indicates the drive orientation. Two modes of testing for orientation are disclosed. The carriage positioner is actuate for causing a momentary uncorrected radial movement of the carriage. The response of the carriage servo is measured in one of two ways. The uncorrected momentary carriage motion is detected either by detecting changes in a position error signal of either the rotary position or the carriage.

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Tucson, AZ, United States of America

Enrique E Aviles