Data media having variable control field in data units

Abstract

The present invention relates to a data media having a variable control field in a data unit, wherein the data unit (100) on a data storage medium includes a control field (110). In one example embodiment, a control block (200) specifies the control action determined by the state of one or more bits (112) in the control field. By using a control block to specify the action of one or more bits in the control field, the action controlled by the data in the control field can be changed to accommodate future needs.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention generally relates to data storage media. Background technique [0002] U.S. Patent No. 6,330,210 (Weirauch et al.) teaches a data structure on a rewritable data storage medium, called a disk control block (DCB), which is used to control access to specific areas on the medium. access. For example, an access control block may partition the media, and the control block may specify for each partition whether the drive has restricted access to that partition, or whether the drive is allowed to write, format, write-once, credential, etc. within a partition. Password reading, password writing, password formatting, password adding, etc. Control blocks can be used for more than just access control. US Patent No. 6,330,210 is hereby incorporated by reference for its entire teaching. [0003] In general, a control block need not specify all controls of a partition during formatting. New partitions can be written and the control blocks c...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

First, if the control block has to be accessed and rewritten every time a new partition is written, performance will suffer

Second, for some types of rewritable media, there is a limit to the number of times an area can be overwritten, and for some types of rewritable media, repeatedly rewriting the same data in the same area can reduce the number of times the area can be overwritten

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