Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.v.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Japan, Ltd.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Hitachi Video and Information System, Inc.

Hiroyuki Tsuchinaga

Takeshi Maeda

Seiichi Mita

Toshimitsu Kaku

Tsuyoshi Toda

Fumiyoshi Kirino

Yasutaka Nishida

Atsushi Saito

Kazuo Shigematsu

Hideki Sawaguchi

Hiroshi Ide

Fumio Kugiya

Terumi Takashi

Naoki Satoh

Hisashi Takano

Hisataka Sugiyama

Yasuhide Ouchi

Hiroyuki Minemura

Hirofumi Sukeda

Masafumi Mochizuki

Morishi Izumita

Kiyoshi Matsumoto

Fumio Hara

Shigeru Nakamura

Hideki Saga

Yoshito Tsunoda

Yoshizumi Eto

Hitoshi Ogawa

Toru Kawashima

Masuo Kasai

Masanori Matsuzaki

Tsuyashi Toda

Horishi Ide

To effectively suppress a signal in a low frequency region in which the medium noise and the signal distortion are concentrated, and in order to effectively utilize a detected component of the reproduced signal in the low frequency region, a target of partial response equalization to the perpendicularly recorded/reproduced signal is set so that the low-frequency component around the direct current is suppressed to a regulated quantity for both the effective suppression and the effective utilization. Accordingly, a maximum-likelihood decoding process is carried out through the target of partial response equalization. Reliability of data detection is made higher and a signal-to-noise ratio is improved, so that the noise from the recording medium can be reduced more and it is possible to provide a high-density magnetic recording/reproducing apparatus.

Apparatus, signal-processing circuit and device for magnetic recording system

Embodiments of the present invention efficiently format long sectors, without decreasing the performance, in a magnetic disk drive in which servo sectors are radially formed at regular intervals, and make full use of the ECC performance that is enhanced by the long sectors. In one embodiment, a data format in each zone on a magnetic disk is completed by a plurality of tracks N (N is an integer, which is 2 or more). The storage capacity per track of the outermost radius zone Z#is 150 kB. In this zone, long sectors each having a length of 32 kB are formatted with the number of tracks per format N#=3. The storage capacity per track of the innermost radius zone Z#m is 80 kB. In this zone, long sectors each having a length of 32 kB are formatted with the number of tracks per format N#m=2.

Method for formatting data sectors on magnetic disk, and magnetic disk drive

Embodiments of the invention provide a disk drive that is capable of enhancing the storage capacity increase ratio while reducing the processing load for read/write operations. In one embodiment, a disk drive comprises a recording medium and a control section. The recording medium includes concentric or spiral data tracks. Each of the data tracks is provided with a plurality of circumferentially arranged sectors. The control section receives instructions for writing into a plurality of sectors, rearranges the data to be written into each sector into groups of N pieces of write data, and writes the data into N data tracks.

Disk drive with enhanced storage capacity increase ratio

Embodiments of the invention provide a disk drive that is capable of determining the offset of a magnetic head position through simple and easy processing in a case where the shingle write method is adopted, and that is capable of increasing the accuracy. In one embodiment, a disk drive comprises: a recording medium including data tracks, each of which is formed with part of the data track being overwritten by an adjacent data track on the inner circumferential side or by an adjacent data track on the outer circumferential side; a head assembly including a write head for writing information to the recording medium, and a read head for reading out information from the recording medium; and a control device for controlling a position of the head assembly relative to the recording medium. Position-error detection signals whose phases differ from each other are repeatedly written to the recording medium in the track direction with written positions of the position-error detection signals being deviated from each other by a track pitch in the track width direction; and the control device controls a position of the head assembly on the basis of a burst signal read by the read head.

Calibration of reader/writer offset in hard disk drive using shingled recording

According to embodiments of the present invention, tracks can be formed on a magnetic recording medium on a zonal area at intervals of either a first track pitch or a second track pitch, both of which differ from each other. For a reference track defined in each zonal area, regardless of whether tracks are formed with the first track pitch or the second track pitch, the first track pitch and the second track pitch are specified so that a head position at the time of writing or reading information to or from the reference track, is common to both of the first track pitch and the second track pitch.

Information recording apparatus

Embodiments of the invention provide a disk drive that is capable of effectively controlling a side erase, which is one of the problems with the use of the perpendicular recording technology. In one embodiment, tracks on a recording medium are formed concentrically or spirally by overwriting a primary side track, which is either an inner track or outer track, onto part of a secondary side track, which is on the side away from the primary side track. A head unit is installed so that a magnetic head positioned at one end of the head unit relatively may move over the recording medium and that the yaw angle prevailing at an end track of the primary side on the recording medium may be substantially zero.

disk drive with side erase control

A method of recording data into a recording medium by forming a recording region which is physically different from the nonrecorded portions is disclosed. The optical data recording/reproducing method includes a first trial writing operation in which trial writing data are recorded into the recording medium while changing the recording power conditions, the recorded trial writing data are reproduced, and the reproduced trial writing data are evaluated to set an optimum recording power. The method also includes a second trial writing operation in which trial writing data are recorded into the recording medium while changing the servo conditions, the recorded trial writing data are reproduced, and the reproduced trial writing data are evaluated to set optimum servo conditions.

Magneto-optical data recording/reproducing method

In a partial-response maximum-likelihood (PRML) signal detection and processing technique, reduction of data detection error events caused due to medium noise is achieved. For a PRML detection data result obtained after PRML data demodulation, a code error event that depends on a signal distance, and which has a high frequency of occurrence, is noticed and its occurrence probability is estimated. A locally-existing medium noise quantity is estimated from preceding and subsequent code patterns of the PRML detection data result. Based on this, the occurrence probability of the error event is compensated to improve the detection precision. As a result, data modulation with reliability higher than conventional maximum likelihood detection can be realized with a simple circuit structure.

Data decoding method and circuit and information recording and reproducing apparatus using the same

An error correction method is provided as follows: handling a 2-event error generated very frequently as an object of correction; sequentially finding CRC data for a generated event of an error handled as the defined object of correction at any arbitrary bit position of reproduced data by implementation of a cyclic-replacement process; carrying out an exclusive-addition process of the CRC data to CRC data of the reproduced data in order to virtually carry out a tentative-correction process on a 1-event error at a first bit position; further finding CRC data generated after the tentative-correction process in order to detect a 1-event error at a second bit position; and correcting the 1-event error completing the tentative-correction process at the first position and the 1-event error at the second bit position.

Error correction method, error correction circuit and information-recording/reproduction apparatus

A magnetic recording system having a magnetic-recording medium with data sectors wherein a preamble pattern of a prescribed cycle is recorded, the preamble pattern having the cycle of a predetermined T, wherein T represents a minimum duration of a data-recorded bits in the data sectors. The system includes a magnetic head to reproduce the preamble pattern and a signal-processing circuit to process data to be recorded in and reproduced from the data sectors. The signal-processing circuit including (i) a sampler for sampling a signal reproduced from the preamble pattern and (ii) a corrector for correcting the amplitude by using maximum and minimum amplitude values in each cycle of the preamble pattern sampled by the sampler.

Preamble pattern and magnetic recording system using the pattern

In a partial-response maximum-likelihood (PRML) signal detection and processing technique, reduction of data detection error events caused due to medium noise is achieved. For a PRML detection data result obtained after PRML data demodulation, a code error event that depends on a signal distance, and which has a high frequency of occurrences, is noticed and its occurrence probability is estimated. A locally-existing medium noise quantity is estimated from preceding and subsequent code patterns of the PRML detection data result. Based on this, the occurrence probability of the error event is compensated to improve the detection precision. As a result, data modulation with reliability higher than conventional maximum likelihood detection can be realized with a simple circuit structure.

When jitter-like noise is prominent, sampling-phase control and amplitude control in a preamble pattern region is affected. It is possible to reduce effects of jitter-like noise without increasing the length of the preamble pattern. By altering a preamble pattern from that of a conventional 4T-cycle to 6T-cycle or over, amplitude data at a peak point of a reproduced signal, which is less affected by jitter-like noise, is utilized. Thus, the stability of the amplitude control can be improved. As to the phase control, a shift of the sampling timing is estimated by sample data of one cycle of the preamble pattern, and an acquisition procedure of the timing control is made faster.

A method of recording information on an information medium, especially on an optical recording medium with light. It has been hard to determine optimum power accurately due to the influence of the linearity and the mark length dependence on rewrite deterioration when a write parameter calibration on a phase change optical disk is performed by a conventional asymmetry method prior to information recording. According to the present invention, a single pattern or a random pattern is recorded on an information medium, and the difference between the clock and the data edge is detected using a reproduced signal. On the basis of this difference, the threshold power of the recording is determined and multiplied by a constant to optimize the recording power.

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Kodaira, Japan

Hiroyuki Tsuchinaga