Overlapped spin-up process for optical disk drive

Abstract

A system and method for simultaneously spinning up an optical disk and performing operations to prepare the optical disk for data access in an optical disk drive system. A controller controls the performance of various disk drive operations in parallel with the acceleration and settling of the optical disk. The spin-up sub-process includes three operational periods for high density media and five operational periods for low density media. Each of these periods corresponds to a different range of spindle speed and stability. First, the optical disk accelerates towards a target speed. During the first operational period wherein the spindle oscillation is greater than a minimum threshold speed variance, operations which are not speed dependent are performed. During the second operational period wherein the spindle is settling and the oscillation is between the minimum and a final threshold speed variance, speed dependent operations are performed. These include reading header information, and performing initial calibrations. When the spindle further settles and the oscillations are less than the final threshold speed variance, speed dependent calibrations which must be performed when the disk media is rotating at the target operational speed are performed.