The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 30, 2002
Filed:
Mar. 01, 2001
Benedict Michael Rafanello, Round Rock, TX (US);
Vincent Brian Rapp, Austin, TX (US);
Barry Lowell Russell, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Where a number n of read attempts are required to successfully read a data sector, with the first n-1 attempts returning a disk drive read error, the number of attempts required is compared to a predefined threshold selected to indicate that the sector is unreliable and is in danger of becoming completely unrecoverable. If the threshold number of attempts is not exceeded, the sector is presumed to still be good and no further action need be taken. If the threshold number of attempts was equaled or exceeded, however, the unreliable or failing sector is relocated to a reserved replacement sector, with the recovered data written to the replacement sector. The failing data sector is remapped to the replacement sector, which becomes a fully functional substitute for the failing sector for future reads and writes while preserving the original user data. Data within a failing sector is thus preserved before the sector becomes completely unrecoverable.