Patent · US Expired

Disk drive apparatus and head switching method in a disk drive apparatus

US5969895A · kind A · utility

14Cited by
1References
8Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMar 26, 1997
Grant dateOct 19, 1999
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 26, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG11B5/5547
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The present invention provides a method and apparatus to efficiently switch heads in a disk drive. A disk drive comprises a plurality of recording surfaces and a plurality of heads and each head is opposed to a recording surface. The heads are used for reading data from or writing data to the plurality of recording surfaces. An offset quantity table stores an offset quantity for each of the plurality of heads. The offset quantity is a value representative of the distance of a head with respect to a reference head. A head sequence table stores a predetermined head switching sequence. Head switching operations use the head switching sequence stored in the head sequence table.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.