Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

Kek Ming Chua

Dean V Dang

Ming Jin

Prakash Balasubramaniam

Philip Bernard Saram

William J Seamon

King S Goh

A disk drive is disclosed including a disk having a plurality of sectors, and a head actuated over the disk. A defect threshold is initialized, and a first sector is read to generate a first read signal. The first read signal is processed to detect a defect in the first sector relative to the defect threshold. After detecting the defect, the defect threshold is adjusted and the first sector is reread to generate a second read signal. The second read signal is processed to detect the defect in the first sector relative to the adjusted defect threshold.

Disk drive adjusting a defect threshold when scanning for defective sectors

Defects are identified in a disk drive by first writing a pattern of tracks to a disk surface in the disk drive, the pattern of tracks including written tracks alternating with unwritten tracks. The written tracks of the pattern of tracks are read, and a defect in a portion of a first written track is detected. An unread portion of a first unwritten track is then identified as comprising a defect based at least in part on the defect in the first written track, the first unwritten track located proximate the first written track.

Method of alternating track write for defect identification

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Rancho Santa Margarita, CA, United States of America

Kek Ming Chua