Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Japan, Ltd.

Hitachi Microcomputer Engineering, Ltd.

Tsuyoshi Takahashi

Hiroshi Nishida

Jun Naruse

Yuji Nishimura

Tomio Suzuki

Shinobu Yoshida

Jyousei Shimizu

Tetsuo Yuki

Kouki Uefune

Kenji Mori

Masami Suzuki

Masahiko Sega

Takashi Matsuki

Katsutoshi Nii

Shozo Saegusa

Tatsuya Ito

Masaru Muranishi

Kenji Tomida

Kazuhiko Kawakami

Yuuichi Yanagase

Hideyuki Kimura

Masatoshi Ishikawa

Naoki Maeda

Katsumi Kawamura

Tadashi Okumura

Mitsuyuki Tsuyuki

Takeshi Shibuya

Yuzo Yamaguchi

Kazuo Nakagoshi

Takuji Ogawa

Yokuo Saitoh

Takuji Torii

Kihachiro Tanaka

Jiro Kaneko

Yoshiyuki Hirano

Hiroshi Ikeda

Yuzo Kadomukai

Masaaki Matsumoto

Isao Shimizu

Yozo Nakamura

Kazuo Ono

Hiromu Hirai

Isao Kobayashi

Nobuhiro Hamada

Ko Miyazaki

Shunichi Mitsuya

Yasuhiro Matsuda

Yuji Hata

Haruaki Otsuki

Goro Suzuki

Susumu Ebihara

Muneo Kawamoto

Takeo Hayakawa

Tetsuya Yamamoto

Shigeyoshi Saito

Toshio Ohdaira

Mikio Higashi

Yoshiko Kawabe

Susumu Tamura

Susumu Sugawara

Mikihiko Motoki

Naoto Uemura

Hiroyuki Mitsuhashi

A falling sensor is provided, which detects a falling of a magnetic disk drive or an information processing device installed with said magnetic disk drive and which is effective for avoiding physical damages of magnetic heads and magnetic disk media. The magnetic disk drive or the information processing device, include an unload mechanism moving or evacuating said magnetic head from a surface of said magnetic disk media, and a falling sensor comprising a conductive flexible beamsor members having a compatible function, a conductive weightsupported by these beams and a conductive wallarranged to be made contact or non-contact with said weight. The sensor can detect a falling of the magnetic disk drive or the information processing device which is typically a notebook personal computer installing with the magnetic disk drive, and evacuate the magnetic head by the unload mechanism. The conductive wallcan be formed as a tubular member.

Falling sensor and the information processing device making use of it

A falling sensor is provided, which detects a falling of a magnetic disk drive or an information processing device installed with the magnetic disk drive and which is effective for avoiding physical damage of magnetic heads and magnetic disk media. The magnetic disk drive or the information processing device, include an unload mechanism moving or evacuating the magnetic head from a surface of the magnetic disk media, and a falling sensor comprising a conductive flexible beam or member having a compatible function, a conductive weight supported by these beams and a conductive wall arranged to be made in contact or non-contact with the weight. The sensor can detect a falling of the magnetic disk drive or the information processing device, which is typically a notebook personal computer installed with the magnetic disk drive, and evacuate the magnetic head by the unload mechanism.

A falling sensor is provided, which detects a falling of a magnetic disk drive or a information processing device installed with the magnetic disk drive and which is effective for avoiding physical damage of magnetic heads and magnetic disk media. The magnetic disk drive or the information processing device, include an unload mechanism moving or evacuating the magnetic head from a surface of the magnetic disk media, and a falling sensor comprising a conductive flexible beam or member having a compatible function, a conductive weight supported by these beams and a conductive wall arranged to be made in contact or non-contact with the weight. The sensor can detect a falling of the magnetic disk drive or the information processing device, which is typically a notebook personal computer installed with the magnetic disk drive, and evacuate the magnetic head by the unload mechanism. The conductive wall can be formed of a tubular member.

A spindle motor for magnetic disc device includes a hub having an inside and an outer peripheral side on which a magnetic disc is mounted, a rotary shaft having an axial direction and coupled with the hub so as to be integrally rotated therewith, with the motor being arranged on the inside of the hub. The hub, the rotary shaft and a part of the motor constitute a rotary body. A radial bearing having a length in the axial direction of the rotary shaft, for supporting the rotary body in a direction crossing the rotary shaft, and a thrust bearing for supporting the rotary body in the axial direction of the rotary shaft are provided. The thrust bearing has an outer diameter greater than the length of the radial bearing, and is arranged at a position which is inside of the motor and diametrically inward of the hub.

Spindle motor and magnetic disc device using thereof having radial and thrust bearings

A spindle motor used in a magnetic disc apparatus having a hub to which a magnetic disc is mounted and a rotary shaft to which the hub is fixed. The rotary shaft is located in a bearing casing having one end opened and the other end closed by a hydrodynamic pressure radial bearing, the rotary shaft being supported by a hydrodynamic pressure thrust bearing and the hydrodynamic pressure radial bearing. An inner diameter D and a width L of the hydrodynamic pressure radial bearing having a relationship of L/D<1.

Spindle motor and magnetic disc device with hydrodynamic bearings

A rotary shaft is rotatably supported by a hydrodynamic fluid radial bearing and a hydrodynamic fluid thrust bearing which are excellent in shock resistance, an bearing arrangement in which vibration in a translation mode of the shaft, among vibration components caused by unbalance force exerted to the rotary shaft, is supported by the radial bearing, and vibration in conical mode is supported by the thrust bearing, magnetic fluid is used as lubrication oil, and a permanent magnet is located between the radial bearing and the thrust bearing so as to apply a magnetic attracting force between the rotary shaft and the thrust bearing so as to carry out axial positioning in order to use the magnetic disc device in an arbitrary attaching posture. With this arrangement, the magnetic disc device using such a bearing arrangement can enhance portability, thinning and antishock ability, and reduce noise and power consumption, thereby it is possible to provide a note-type personal computer with a high degree of reliability.

Spindle motor and magnetic disc device with hydrodynamic bearing

Magnetic disk unit having anti-impact arrangement

A magnetic disk device has a large capacity with a small and thin structure and includes a spindle system, an actuator system, a control package for controlling the systems, and a PCMCIA connector. The spindle system is of an in-hub structure wherein two magnetic disks are rotated in inside diameter portions of the magnetic disks. The actuator system has sliders mounting magnetic heads for writing and reading magnetic information to and from the magnetic disks, guide arms and suspension structures. The suspension structures also include a coil, a magnetic circuit for imparting a drive force in cooperation with the coil, a coil holder for supporting the coil, a pivot sleeve for rocking the guide arms, the coil holder and spacers which are integrally laminated to each other, bearings and a pivot shaft. The PCMCIA connector connects to the control package and is fixed by the housing and a package cover.

PC card type magnetic disk device

A magnetic disk apparatus includes a link mechanism constructed by at least a flexible portion and a hard member and one end of the link mechanism is attached to a fixing unit and the other end is attached to a hard disk assembly so that the flexible portion of the link mechanism is located on a straight line which passes through the center of gravity of the hard disk assembly, thereby having a sufficient rigidity for a disturbance in the straight line direction which acts on the HDA (Hard Disk Assembly) and reducing a natural frequency of the HDA for the disturbance in the rotating direction of the HDA.

Supporting mechanism of disk unit in magnetic disk apparatus having link

A storage device includes a partition wall dividing an interior of a casing into a disk chamber and a drive chamber. Recording disks are rotatably disposed in the disk chamber. Arms, each supporting a read/write head at a distal end portion thereof are capable of exteding into the respective spaces between the recording disks through an opening of the partition wall. An actuator is mounted within the drive chamber for linearly reciprocating the arms to cause the heads to skim across recording surfaces of the recording disks. An interrupting surface is formed on a portion of the partition wall at a downstream side of the arm with respect to an air flow due to the rotation of the recording disks, for interrupting the air flow to convert a dynamic pressure of the air flow into a static pressure thereof. With this arrangement, the air is prevented from flowing back from the drive chamber into the disk chamber.

Rotating disk storage device with cooling air flow control

A storage device includes a partition wall dividing an interior of a casing into a disk chamber and a drive chamber. Recording disks are rotatably disposed in the disk chamber. Arms, each supporting a read/write head at a distal end portion thereof, are capable of extending into the respective spaces between the recording disks through an opening of the partition wall. An actuator is mounted within the drive chamber for linearly reciprocating the arms to cause the heads to skim across recording surfaces of the recording disks. An interrupting surface is formed on a portion of the partition wall at a downstream side of the arm with respect to an air flow due to the rotation of the recording disks, for interrupting the air flow to convert a dynamic pressure of the air flow into a static pressure thereof. With this arrangement, the air is prevented from flowing back from the drive chamber into the disk chamber.

A magnetic disk apparatus has a rail support which supports guide rails for guiding a carriage on which heads are mounted. The rail support is positioned outside a magnet of a voice coil motor and mounted on a frame. The guide rails are disposed so as to extend across a cavity in the rail support and have their opposite end portions attached to the rail support. The guide rails do not vibrate even if the voice coil motor receives a reaction during head seeking, whereby the head positioning accuracy can be improved and the storage capacity can be increased. The rigidity of the guide rails is increased by supporting the opposite ends of the guide rails. This structure and a coaxial arrangement of a motor coil allow the overall length of the carriage and, hence, the overall size of the apparatus to be reduced.

Magnetic disk apparatus having improved support for head assembly

Degradation of a detector-head positioning in an information storage device using a rotary recording medium may be prevented. A reaction force which gives a vibration to a positioning mechanism in a magnetic disk drive generally occurs when the detector heads seek a destination track on a rotary recording medium. This vibration or impact may be decreased or eliminated if an actuator magnet is supported on a linear-slider member or a rotary-slider member. Sliding motion is received with a pneumatic spring to softly result in no vibration being transmitted to the spindle or other positioning mechanism. The pneumatic spring can drastically reduce a proper vibration frequency of the positioning mechanism (magnetic-circuit support) to such an extent that an electrical servo system can catch the vibration frequency and can hold down a location error. Even if a reaction force is too big to prevent resonance from being caused, the pneumatic spring can quickly attenuate the reaction force using its own throttle hole. In case the magnetic disk drive is fixed on an incline or a slant, another spring between a magnetic circuit and a housing can regulate a positional relationship relative to peripheral members including the actuator.

Information storage device using a rotary recording medium

A magnetic disk storage system in which magnetic disk drives can be cooled effectively, and even if a blast device for one of he magnetic disk drives fall into trouble or cease operation, a temperature rise of this magnetic disk drive can be suppressed to the minimum. For this purpose, in the magnetic disk storage system containing a plurality of magnetic disk drives, blase devices ae provided for each of the disk drives, and the disk drives are separated by partitions in which openings are formed so that the cooling air can be passed between adjacent magnetic disk drives. With this structure, even if a blast device for a certain magnetic disk drive is out of order or stopped, a part of the cooling air from a blase device for the adjacent disk drives flows into the magnetic disk drive in question through the openings formed in the partitions, and consequently, the temperature rise of the magnetic disk drive whose blase device ceases operation can be suppressed to the minimum, to thereby enhance the reliability of the magnetic disk storage system.

Magnetic disk storage system

In a magnetic disk apparatus, a head positioning signal is written on a magnetic disk, the written positioning signal is read out, the read positioning signal is demodulated to produce a position signal, and a data write/read head is positioned to a predetermined track in responses to the produced position signal. A head positioning signal is written into write tracks adjacent to each other along a radial direction of the magnetic head, the positioning signal is read out by tracing a read track bridging the write tracks, and a positioning error of the head positioning signal is generated from a shift of the read positioning signal with respect to the read track. Furthermore, the position signal is over-written by actuating the write head in the radial direction according to the positioning error.

Method and apparatus for writing magnetic head positioning signal

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Odawara, Japan

Tsuyoshi Takahashi