Patent · US Expired

On the fly write reallocation

US6263459A · kind A · utility

142Cited by
3References
11Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateApr 29, 1999
Grant dateJul 17, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 29, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG11B2220/20
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method for reassigning a defective data site on a disk surface of a disk drive during a write operation. When a write error is detected while writing a data block to a user data site, a write error recovery procedure is performed on the user data site. If the write error recovery procedure determines that the user data site contains an unrecoverable error, the data block is written to a spare data site located at a different area of the disk surface, and a cross-reference entry for the reassignment is stored in memory on the disk drive. Upon completion of the write operation, the user data sites encountering write errors are reassigned to the spare data sites. The reassignment operation includes marking all user data sites encountering write errors as defective data sites, adding all user data sites encountering write errors to a list of defective data sites, and writing the reassignment cross reference entries stored in the disk drive memory to the disk surface. The method can handle reallocation of multiple unrecoverable data sites within each disk write operation.

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