2772results about "Maintaining head carrier alignment" patented technology

A media player may occasionally be unable to play or continue to play a particular item of media. When that occurs, the media player outputs an error indication that is related to the type of media that the problem media item is representative of. For example, if the problem item is a movie, then the media player may display an error indication having the appearance of broken movie film. If the problem media item is music, then the media player may display an error indication having the appearance of a broken compact disc (“CD”). Thus whatever the type of media that is not playing, the media player outputs an error indication that is appropriate for that type of media. The error indications output by the player are therefore context-based or media-appropriate.

A read/write head includes a slider provided with an electromagnetic transducer element (or an optical module), an actuator, and a suspension. The actuator includes a fixed part, a movable part, and at least two beam members for coupling them together. The beam members have a displacement generating means that elongates and contracts by inverse piezoelectric effect or electrostrictive effect. The fixed part is fixed to the suspension, and the movable part is fixed to the slider. Upon the elongation and contraction of the displacement generator, the displacement generator deflects and the movable part displaces linearly, circularly or rotationally with respect to the fixed part, and the electromagnetic transducer element displaces in a linear or circular orbit, so that the electromagnetic transducer element intersects recording tracks. In the actuator, the fixed part, movable part and beam members are formed as an integrated single piece by providing a hole and/or a cutout in a sheet-like member constructed of a piezoelectric or electrostrictive material. The actuator of the structure illustrated is used for the positioning of a direction intersecting recording tracks. In this case, the total sum of voltages applied on the displacement generating means is controlled in such a manner that it is constant at any time, thereby controlling position fluctuations of the electromagnetic transducer element in the direction vertical to the recording medium surface.

A disk drive is disclosed which links disk commands that access near sequential data sectors. The linked and non-linked disk commands are inserted into an input/output queue and selected for execution according to a rotational position optimization (RPO) algorithm. If an error occurs while executing a linked disk command, the disk commands are unlinked and at least one of the unlinked disk commands is executed. The residual unlinked disk commands are inserted back into the input/output queue for later execution in an order determined by the RPO algorithm.

A disk drive is disclosed comprising a disk having a plurality of data tracks, wherein each data track comprises a plurality of data sectors, and a head is actuated over the disk. A suspect sector list (SSL) stores a plurality of SSL entries, wherein each SSL entry identifies at least one suspect data sector. The disk drive further comprises a disk controller for executing an access command received from a host computer to access at least one of the data sectors. If an error is detected while executing the access command, the disk controller generates an SSL entry having a priority level selected from at least three priority levels and adds the SSL entry to the SSL. A verification operation is executed for each suspect data sector identified by each SSL entry, wherein the SSL entries are processed relative to the priority level assigned to each SSL entry.

A method and apparatus for recording on an optical recording medium, including the recording of management information, are described as a standard for the write-once Blu-ray disc. The management information is recorded in a management area of the disc, such as a temporary defect management area (TDMA), and includes record status information and update information. The record status information is a space bitmap (SBM) indicating whether a recording operation has been performed for a predetermined area of the disc, and the update information is SBM update information indicating whether the record status information is to be continuously managed. The SBM update information controls the state of an SBM-on/off function for each of a plurality of recording areas and may be in the form of either start position information and length information corresponding to the respective areas or an SBM update flag. The SBM update information is recorded in the TDMA and is stored in a memory of an optical disc recording/reproducing device for use during recording and reproducing operations. At the time of recording in the predetermined area, an SBM-on state enables a logical overwriting operation to be performed as necessary.

A method of and apparatus for managing disc defects in a disc using a temporary defect management area in the disc, and the disc, where the method includes recording in a data area user data; and recording in a temporary defect management area, which is present in at least one of a lead-in area and a lead-out area, which temporary defect information and temporary defect management information regarding the user data recorded in the data area are recorded. Accordingly, the method and apparatus are applicable to recordable discs and capable of effectively using the defect management area.

An information editing apparatus for editing recording information already recorded on a write-once recording medium such as DVD-R is provided. In this apparatus, a remaining capacity in the DVD-R is detected. Then, it is determined whether the recording information can be edited or not on the basis of the detected remaining capacity and an amount of information to be recorded in the unrecorded area by editing the recording information. Further, a result of the determination is notified.

A write-once recording medium is provided, which comprises a management information area for recording management information for managing a recorded state, and a user data area for recording user data. The user data area is configured to contain at least one recording area. At least one session is configured to contain at least one of the at least one recording area. The management information contains range information indicating a recording range of the at least one recording area and identification information for identifying the recording area located at a boundary of the session.

In a method for setting variable areas of an opical disc which variably sets spare area rates of a prescribed quantity provided for preparing a liably-occurring recording error due to a defect of the optical disc having the variable spare areas, the total quantity of the spare areas installed to the optical disc may be the same as the prescribed quantity. Also, the size rates of the spare areas are variably set in the radius direction by centering about a center portion of the optical disc. Particularly, the more spare area rates are given to the inner circumferential portion and outer circumferential portion, and the less spare area rates are given to the center portion which is relatively stable portion, thereby minimizing the defect occurring rate to decrease the number of defective discs.

In order to enhance the usability of a write-once recording medium, the recording medium is provided with an ordinary recording/reproduction area, an alternate area, a first alternate-address management information area and a second alternate-address management information area. In addition, written/unwritten state indication information is recorded in a predetermined area. The second alternate-address management information area is an area allowing alternate-address management information recorded therein to be renewed by adding alternate-address management information to the area. Alternate-address management information recorded in the second alternate-address management information area includes information recorded in a first information format and information recorded in a second information format. The first information format shows an alternate source address and an alternate destination address for each data unit. On the other hand, the second information format shows an alternate source address and an alternate destination address for a group of a plurality of physically continuous data units. The second information format is used as a format for effectively carrying out an alternate-address process on such a group of data units. All alternate-address management information is recorded in the first alternate-address management information area in the first information format.

Information indicative of disk-applicable recording speeds is incorporated in lead-out start time information within ATIP information that is recorded in pre-grooves located in a lead-in area of an optical disk. Once the optical disk is inserted in an optical disk recording device, the lead-out start time information is read out, so that recording is performed on the optical disk after a recording speed is automatically set to a highest settable speed value within a range specified by the read-out lead-out start time information. This arrangement can reliably prevent recording at speeds beyond predetermined limit values unique to the optical disk.

The present invention relates to a method of detecting a defect area without any mistake during data recording on a writable disk. This method detects a level of a servo error signal produced during a recording operation, checks whether the servo error signal is in an abnormal state based on the detected level, detects a periodic wobble signal or periodicity of the abnormal state occurrences of the servo error signal produced during the recording operation, and determines whether a recording area is in defect based on successful decoding of the detected periodic wobble signal or the periodicity of the abnormal state occurrences if the servo error signal is in an abnormal state. This method ensures exact detection of a defect area, whereby unnecessary speed reduction can be eliminated and successful data writing can be also guaranteed even in a defect area.

A rewritable optical medium and a method of managing its defect area is disclosed. The DMA condition or initially assignable spare area size in the present invention is determined based upon the interrelation between the spare area size and the DMA condition. Namely, the PDL entry condition among the DMA condition is determined to allow a minimum spare area for linear replacement in the initially assignable spare area after slipping replacement during formatting to facilitate management of the defect area of a rewritable optical medium. The present invention also discloses a method of controlling the recording/playback of optical media with the same format and different sizes, thereby improving the system performance.

The present invention allows the usability of a write-once recording medium to be enhanced. The write-once recording medium is provided with an ordinary recording/reproduction area, an alternate area, a first alternate-address management information area (DMA) and a second alternate-address management information area (TDMA). In addition, written/unwritten state indication information (a space bitmap) is also recorded. The second alternate-address management information area is an area allowing alternate-address management information recorded therein to be renewed by adding alternate-address management information thereto. In addition, the written/unwritten state indication information indicates whether or not data has been recorded in each data unit (cluster) on the recording medium. Thus, it is possible to correctly execute management of defects and properly implement renewal of data in the write-once recording medium.