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:
Feb. 08, 2011
Filed:
Jul. 05, 2006
Babu S. Rahman, Fremont, CA (US);
Erhard Schreck, San Jose, CA (US);
Babu S. Rahman, Fremont, CA (US);
Erhard Schreck, San Jose, CA (US);
Seagate Technology LLC, Scotts Valley, CA (US);
Abstract
The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for bulk erasure of disk drives. According to the novel invention, one or more relatively small-sized permanent magnets or electromagnets are configured to be brought into close proximity to a particular disk surface of the disk drive and to produce a concentrated magnetic force that erases the disk. Notably, the magnets are sized and configured to create a focused magnetic field, and correspondingly to prevent stray magnetic fields, which could otherwise be harmful to magnetically sensitive components of the disk drive, such as motor magnets. The magnets may be configured to gain access to the disk surface through one or more openings on a covered disk drive, e.g., through an actuator and/or servo track writer opening. The magnets and resultant focused magnetic field may be large enough to offer substantially full radial coverage of the disk, or may be smaller and configured to move (e.g., 'sweep') across the surface of the disk for full coverage accordingly.