Iomega Corporation

Weimin Pan

Troy D Larsen

Allen T Bracken

Jason Dewey

Yiping Ma

John R Stokes

Paul R Johnson

Klinton Dilworth Washburn

Robert L Short

Eric Ryon Peters

Don Wilford Wallentine

Kelly D Wright

Mark Dale Thornley

John A Christiansen

A head loading apparatus and method for a disk drive device adapts the head load characteristics of a disk drive in order to minimize the velocity of the heads during loading of the heads onto the surface of a data storage medium. The apparatus is characterized by attempting to load the heads onto engagement with a medium, determining whether the heads actually load, measuring the head load velocity, and adjusting the load characteristics of the drive based on the measured head load velocity. Preferably, the pulse width of the loading current applied to the actuator of the drive is adaptive, either increasingly or decreasingly, in response to the measured head load velocity. This adaptive soft head load characteristic of the drive allows the head load velocity to be minimizes to a velocity sufficient to move the read-write heads off of a load ramp and onto the surface of a data storage medium without damaging the head, the medium, or both.

System and method for adaptive soft head loading of disk drive head onto disk medium

A method and apparatus for detecting defects on a surface of a recording medium in a magnetic disk apparatus. An idling state of the magnetic disk apparatus is detected and a determination is made of the duration that the recording medium has been in use. The presence/absence of defects on the surface of the recording medium is then sequentially detected, responsive to the duration and the idling state, beginning at a start location of the recording medium. Data located at a detected defect is reallocated to a predetermined storage area, and the detected defect is mapped in a defect location map.

Method and apparatus for inspecting recording medium for defects

A method and apparatus for protecting against overwrite and misread errors caused by cartridge movement is disclosed. The apparatus comprises a read/write head and a read-write protection switch in electrical communication with the read-write head wherein the read-write protection switch generates an electrical signal upon movement of the media cartridge that disables the read/write head. The method of misread and overwrite protection comprises: detecting movement of the cartridge shell; disabling read/write heads; identifying whether the media drive was in the process of reading from or writing to the media cartridge; if the media drive was writing to the storage medium when the cartridge shell is moved, generating a write fault interrupt; and if the media drive is reading from the storage medium when the cartridge shell is moved, generating a read fault interrupt. A removable media cartridge having a push member and an abutment surface is also disclosed.

Method and apparatus for cartridge ejection and overwrite protection

A method and apparatus for protecting a disk from overwrites during mechanical shock. If the PES exceeds an off-track threshold for a predetermined number of servo samples, the read/write is suspended for a predetermined duration. The predetermined duration allows for the mechanical shock or disturbance to abate and allows the heads to settle with respect to the track. The off-track threshold being exceeded for several servo samples is used as an indicator of the mechanical force and subsequent undesirable vibration. The writes can then be suspended for the predetermined duration, thereby avoiding overwriting data on adjacent tracks.

Off-track write protection method and system for induced mechanical disturbance on a disk drive

A method and apparatus for protecting against overwrite and misread errors caused by cartridge movement comprises a read/write head and a read-write protection switch in electrical communication with the read-write head. The read-write protection switch generates an electrical signal upon movement of the media cartridge that disables the read/write head. A method of misread and overwrite protection comprises: detecting movement of the cartridge shell; disabling read/write heads; identifying whether the media drive was in the process of reading from or writing to the media cartridge; if the media drive was writing to the storage medium when the cartridge shell is moved, generating a write fault interrupt; and if the media drive is reading from the storage medium when the cartridge shell is moved, generating a read fault interrupt. A removable media cartridge has a push member and an abutment surface.

Method and apparatus for read-write protection

Inserting operational data onto a magnetic disk allows information to be transferred from a servowriter station to a verifier station. This operational data allows disk specific operational data to follow the disk without separate means for attaching data to each disk. The servowriters, which cannot write information to disks at the data sector frequency, inserts the operational data into selected greycodes in the servo sectors. When the disks are verified, the operational data may be moved from the servo sectors to the data sector in the Z-tracks for more permanent storage.

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Layton, UT, United States of America

Weimin Pan