Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.v.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Kazuyuki Ishibashi

Hideki Ohzeki

Isao Yoneda

Tetsuo Ueda

Kazunari Tsuchimoto

Hiroshi Uchida

Yoshikatsu Fujii

Toshiaki Wada

Noboru Yoshida

Hideaki Ito

Satoshi Ishii

Tatsuo Takagi

Takeshi Chawanya

Mirei Hosono

Shunichiroh Ohta

Masaaki Noguchi

Yukiko Arizono

Osamu Takazawa

A disk drive. The disk drive includes a head, a motion mechanism, and a controller. The head is configured to access a disk configured to store data. The motion mechanism is configured to move the head. The controller is configured to determine a seek direction when an error occurred; and, the controller is configured to repeat a seek as a repeat seek to a target radial position from a direction opposite to the seek direction in an error-recovery process for the error which occurred in the seek in which the head moved to the target radial position.

Disk drive and error-recovery processing method

A disk drive configured to control spindle spin is provided. The disk drive includes a spindle motor for spinning a disk configured for storing data, a nonvolatile memory comprising instructions associated with a first process for spin-up of the spindle motor from a power-on mode and the nonvolatile memory comprising instructions associated with a second process for spin-up of the spindle motor from a power save mode, a controller for determining which of the first or the second process for spin-up of the spindle motor to implement in accordance with the instructions stored in the nonvolatile memory and a motor driver for spinning up the spindle motor according to the first process or according to the second process for spin-up of the spindle motor.

Disk drive spin control

Embodiments of the present invention help to increase the capacity and the reliability of a disk drive device to improve the manufacturing yield thereof. An embodiment of the present invention sets a data track pitch for each head slider (recording surface) in accordance with head characteristics. This method for specifying the data track pitch is based on the distance between erase band ends (EBEs) of the both adjacent data tracks. The erase band of a data track is a band defined as the area where the already written data are erased in writing the data track. The distance between the erase band ends of the both adjacent data tracks corresponds to the width SW of the area which is not erased by the adjacent data tracks. Specifying the data track pitch based on this leads to increase in the data capacity of each recording surface and secure prevention of occurrence of a squeeze error.

Disk drive device manufacturing method thereof, and method for specifying data track pitch for the disk drive device

Detection capability of a servo timing mark (STM) is improved. Long STM is configured by pseudo-STM forming part of an AGC/PLL pattern and intrinsic STM. When a system can not recognize the intrinsic STM, it keeps a state that a sector detection window is opened, and is operated in a long STM detection mode to recognize the long STM, thereby generates an STM detection signal. After the STM detection signal has been generated, an STM detection window is closed, and the system is operated in an intrinsic STM detection mode. Since the long STM has longer bit length than the intrinsic STM, it has high discriminating power with respect to other bit patterns. Therefore, even if the sector detection window is remained to be in an opened state, bit strings of data sector, address information in a servo sector or the like is not falsely recognized.

Method and apparatus for detecting servo timing marks in a magnetic disk system

Embodiments of the present invention help to achieve a read error recovery, and suppress decreases in the capacity of the disk drive device and degradation in performance. In one embodiment, a hard disk drive (HDD) performs following control without use of repeatable run-out (RRO) compensation information on a magnetic disk in a normal reading process. When an error occurs in a normal reading process, the HDD moves a read element to a position different from a target position of the normal reading process. At the position where the read element has been moved, the read element reads out the RRO compensation information. In a recovery procedure for the reading process where the error has occurred, the HDD performs following control with compensation by the servo compensation information read out by the read element.

Disk drive device and method for error recovery procedure therefor

Embodiments of the present invention provide accurate pitch control of a servo write track. A Self-Servo-Write (SSW) according to an embodiment of the present invention determines a reference APC by reading a mark formed on the recording surface corresponding to the propagation head prior to starting the product servo pattern writing. The accurate size of the mark in the radial direction is known previously. The reference APC is for determining the track pitch, and by using the mark with the determined size, the product servo patterns can be written with a desired and accurate track pitch.

Method of writing pattern on magnetic disk and device therefor

Embodiments in accordance with the present invention provide a magnetic disk drive with sufficiently low noise. A digital/analog converter supplies to a voice coil motor (VCM) driver a control voltage comprising a first preset voltage value, a second preset voltage value, and a transition voltage value of a substantially cosine wave that interconnects the first preset voltage value and the second preset voltage value. A driving current is supplied from the VCM driver to a voice coil of an actuator assembly. Since a current not containing higher-harmonic components in a transition period flows as a VCM current that flows into the voice coil, vibromotive force can be easily suppressed by shifting a structural resonance point of the entire disk drive including the actuator assembly. In addition, since the back electromotive force occurring in an inductance element is cleared to zero during a half wavelength of period of the cosine wave, speed electromotive force can be measured by immediate shifting from a setting period to a measuring period.

Magnetic disk drive and a loading/unloading method

Embodiments of the invention allow a heater to reduce the clearance between a head element section and the magnetic section while reducing the risk of collision between the head element section and the magnetic disk during load/unload. In one embodiment, an HDD judges whether a heater is ON or OFF after the load process is started. If the heater is found set to ON, the HDD sets the heater to OFF. With the heater kept OFF, the HDD starts the actuator pivoting. If the heater is found set to OFF, the HDD moves the actuator from the parking position to the magnetic disk with the heater kept OFF. Upon completion of the load process, the HDD goes to the subsequent process. Since the heater is OFF during load, the risk of collision between the head element section and the magnetic disk is reduced.

Disk drive with heater for slider and control method thereof

Embodiments of the invention are directed to detecting an abnormality in head flying height. In one embodiment, an AGC controller establishes the gain of the reproduced signal through gain adjustment using the servo AGC of the servo signal. A digital filter performs filtering processing by use of the obtained gain data g and the gain data of previous sectors. A comparative judgment section obtains filtered gain data G from the digital filter and compares the gain data G with a reference value CRITERIA to determine whether the flying height is normal or abnormal. If the gain G is larger than the reference value CRITERIA, then the data write operation is inhibited. The filter parameters of the digital filter are programmable parameters which can be set and changed.

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Kazuyuki Ishibashi