JPH01287871A - Recorder and recording medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To efficiently execute respective types of processing by providing an area to record information concerning a sector in respective sectors of a medium and using the information from the area. CONSTITUTION:When an erasing action is executed, for example, when an (n) track n+1 sector 11 is erased, after it is discriminated that the (n) track n+1 sector is obtained by track and sector address numbers 17 and 18, a flag 19 discriminates whether or not the sector (n) track n+1 sector is the erasable sector. For the reason, at the time of the erasable sector, '0' is written into the flag 19 beforehand, and at the time of the unerasable sector, '1' is written beforehand and when the data are recorded into a data part 16, simultaneously, '1' is recorded in the flag 19. Consequently, by judging the flag 19, it can be judged whether or not the already recorded sector is obtained. Thus, the judgement control of respective types of the processing can be efficiently executed.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a method for processing the recording medium (sector, recording medium) of a recording medium, and more specifically, to a method for processing management information of each sector and for processing a plurality of recording media. The present invention relates to a recording device using a recording medium.

[Prior art and its problems] Conventionally, in erasable/re-writable recording media such as magnetic disks, control for determining whether erasing is possible or not for each sector is carried out separately for each sector. A method has been used in which a directory section is provided separately for each sector, information about whether erasable or non-erasable is recorded in this directory section, and control is performed by reading the contents. However, since the recordable capacity of recording media such as optical disks and magneto-optical disks is much larger than that of magnetic disks, conventional control methods require a lot of time just to search and judge the directory. There was a drawback (first problem).

Furthermore, a recording device has been developed in which a plurality of removable recording media (eg, magnetic disks, optical disks, etc.) are handled as a set, and the recording capacity is increased. Conventionally, this type of device uses each sheet individually, and its IJt
! Since each disc has a control track for control and a replacement area for replacement, when controlling multiple discs in succession (such as an autochanger), the control track and replacement area for each disc must be individually controlled. It was necessary to check and control the contents in advance, which made the control complicated, and the area of the recording medium was taken up by the control track and replacement area, which had the disadvantage of reducing the area that the user could actually use. (
Second problem).

[Means for Solving the Problems] The purpose of the present invention is to solve the problems in the processing of recording units (sectors, recording media) of recording media, in view of the problems of the prior art described in -11. .

The first problem is a recording device that reproduces and/or records information using a recording medium on which information can be recorded at least later; The recording device according to the first invention has a means for IJing information regarding a sector from a specific area in which the sector is written, and a specific area in each sector in which information regarding the sector can be subsequently recorded in advance. The problem is solved by a recording medium according to a second aspect of the invention.

1]? The second problem in point 1 is that a recording device is characterized in that it is treated as a set of removable recording media consisting of a plurality of media, and one of the recording media is used for controlling the entire set. This problem is solved by the invention of No. 3.

[Operation] According to the first invention and the second invention, even with a large-capacity recording medium, by directly reading a specific area (for example, a flag) in a required sector, the data can be read in a short time. Information regarding the target sector can be obtained, and various processing decisions can be quickly controlled.

According to the third invention, even if the number of media to be combined is increased, one recording medium has control information for the entire set, so the apparent recording and reproduction capacity r+1 is large. This is equivalent to using a medium, and continuous recording and playback is also possible.

[Examples] Below, five recording apparatuses and recording media of the present invention will be described in detail based on specific examples.

First, the first invention and the second invention will be explained.

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a recording bag m of the present invention. In the figure, l is a drive device that drives recording media such as a card-shaped recording medium 5 and a disk-shaped recording medium 6;
2 is a drive controller of the drive device 1; 3 is a host computer as a higher-level determination means; and 4 is an interface.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the format structure of the recording medium of the present invention. In FIG. 2, 10 to 12 are each sector on the recording medium, +3, +4 . +5.16 each indicates the format of that sector, 13 to 15
is the II') part, and 16 is the data part. 17-I9
is a diagram showing details of the ID section, where 17 is a track address number, 18 is a sector address number, 19 is an erasable,
This is a flag section that records information to determine whether it is impossible.

Next, processing according to the present invention in the above configuration will be explained.

In the above configuration, when performing an erasing operation (for example, when erasing n track n+1 sector (l)), the method is not to play back the directory part and then find out whether it can be erased, but to directly access that sector. , track and sector address number 17. After determining that this is the target n track n+1 sector by 18, it is determined by flag 19 whether this target sector n track n+l sector is an erasable sector. To do this, if the erasable sector is 1, it is necessary that the flag 19 is written with "0"* in advance, and in the case of an erasable sector, it is necessary that the flag 19 is written with "1" instruction in advance. .This write operation is performed when data is recorded in the data section 16, and at the same time the flag!
It is sufficient to record "l" in 9. Then, even when the same sector is accessed next time, by checking the flag 19, it can be immediately determined that the sector has already been recorded. An example of a flowchart for this determination is shown in FIG.

In this embodiment, a recording medium that can be erased and rewritten is described, but if this is applied to a recording medium that can be written only once (referred to as a write-once recording medium) such as an optical disk, data can be stored in sectors. When recording, by reading the flag as well, write once type recording medium and erasing, l')
:' J-writable recording media can be handled as recording media of the same format, making it easier to control with the same recording device and increasing the versatility of the device.

In addition, if this flag-based sector management method is used for write-once optical discs, conventionally it would have required a means to detect unused sectors and recorded sectors, but it is possible to detect unused sectors by simply checking the contents of the flags. Since recorded sectors can be easily distinguished, there is an advantage that the circuit for this detection means can be omitted.

Further, although the above embodiment has been explained using an optical recording medium as an example, it is clear that data management using this flag is also effective for conventional recording media such as floppy disks and magnetic disks. .

Further, in the embodiment described in (iii) above, the case where the area for recording information regarding sectors is a flag is shown, but a structure other than a flag may be used. Further, the information recorded therein is not limited to information on whether the sector is recordable or not, and may be any other type of information.

Note that the information/information must be recorded in each sector. (1) It is necessary that the information be recorded in each sector.

Next, the third invention of the present invention will be explained.

FIG. 4 is a schematic block diagram of a recording apparatus according to the third aspect of the present invention.

In the same figure, 30 is the removal τjf consisting of a plurality of sheets.
a capable information recording device (in the case of Figure 4, an optical disk device),
31 is the plurality of recording media, 32 is a hard disk, 3
3 is a printer, 34 is a first host computer, 35
is the second host computer.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the information recording medium 31 made up of a plurality of sheets taken out. In FIG. 5, 40 is a control disk including a control track for control and a replacement area, and 41 to 44 are disks for recording actual recording data. In FIG. 5, the total number of recording disks is set to four, but in reality, the system is configured to process a large number of disks.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing management information recorded on the control disk 40. 63A to 67B are management information recorded on the control disk 40 to manage replacement, respectively.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of the format of a data recording disc, where %50 to 52 are the ID part, 53 is the data part, 54 is the media number, 554 is the track number, and 56 is the address &=1. .

Next, the present invention will be described in detail with respect to the above configuration.

In the case of normal recording/reproduction, after inserting the disc and prior to the first access, the control track of the control disc 40 is played in i4 format and the replacement management table is read. Next, in the case of a recording medium that has never been replaced, since it is known from the replacement management table of the control disk 40 that replacement is not necessary, the corresponding address is directly accessed. Here, if replacement processing does not occur, the process ends as is. In the event of a replacement,
In FIG. 6, record the media number to be replaced at 638, the track number to be replaced at 64Δ, the address value to be replaced at 65A, the replacement destination track number at 66A, the replacement destination address value at 67Δ, and the actual Necessary data is recorded in the data portions of addresses 66A and 67Δ, and the process ends. Sequentially, when replacement occurs, 63A to 67B, etc. are recorded one after another in the replacement management information area of the control disk 40,
Data is recorded in the replacement area. Next, when accessing the data portion of the address recorded twice using this replacement management information area, the operation of directly accessing the replacement area is performed. FIG. 8 shows an example of the flow.

When this optical disk device is accessed by multiple hosts in this way, it is advantageous to manage information as much as possible on the optical disk device, considering the reduction of the burden on the hosts and the transmission of information between each host. it is conceivable that.

In addition, in the embodiment described above, the control disk 40
This is an example of recording only the control track information, replacement management information area, and replacement area, but this one set also includes the directory management information and FAT contents when this disc has a tree structure. By recording all disks on the control disk, it is possible to manage and access multiple disks as if they were a single disk.

Further, in the embodiment described above, the control disk 40 is
Although the number of disks in one set is large, it is clear that the control disk is not limited to one disk, but is not limited to a plurality of disks.

The present invention described above is not limited to the above embodiments, but can be modified in various ways.
Application is possible.

For example, the first invention and the third invention may be integrated to configure a recording device as one system.

A typical processing flowchart of the recording apparatus in this case is shown in FIG. 9, taking as an example the flow of recording after checking whether the sector is recordable.

[Effects of the Invention] (1) As explained above, according to the first invention and the second invention, an area is created in each sector of a recording medium to record information regarding the sector, and information from this area is recorded. By using information, various processes can be performed efficiently. For example, since it is possible to distinguish between erasable and non-erasable disks, this is an effective method, especially for managing large-capacity disks. Furthermore, as described in other embodiments, there is an effect that write-once recording media can be processed in the same manner as erasable and re-writable recording media (2) Furthermore, according to the third invention, a plurality of By considering recording media such as optical disks and magneto-optical disks as one set and preparing one of them as a control disk, management of other data recording disks (data disks) can be unified. , it becomes easy to control these multiple disks, and the entire multiple disks can be controlled in the same way as a single disk, so just by adding the number of disks to the desired capacity, This has the effect that a disk system with Xn times the capacity of one disk (ff1) can be easily realized.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a recording apparatus n, which is a first aspect of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the format structure of a recording medium according to the second aspect of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a flowchart used in the recording apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a schematic block diagram of a recording apparatus according to the third aspect of the present invention. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an information recording medium 31 made up of a plurality of 1γj sheets. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of management information recorded on the control disk. FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of the format of a data recording disc. FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a flowchart used in the recording apparatus according to the third aspect of the present invention. FIG. 9 is an example of a flowchart of a recording apparatus having a configuration that integrates the first invention and the third invention. 19: Flag 40: Control Disc Agent Patent Attorney Yohei Yamado Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4

Claims (6)

[Claims] (1) A recording device that reproduces and/or records information using a recording medium on which information can be recorded at least later, wherein the recording device reproduces and/or records information from a specific area provided in each sector of the recording medium. A recording device characterized in that it has means for obtaining information regarding. (2) The recording device according to claim 1, wherein the specific area is a flag. (3) The recording device according to claim 1, wherein the information regarding the sector is information for determining whether the sector is a recordable or erasable sector. (4) A recording medium characterized in that each sector has a specific area in advance in which information regarding the sector can be recorded subsequently. (5) A recording device characterized in that a plurality of removable recording media are handled as one set, and one of the recording media is used for controlling the entire set. (6) A recording apparatus as set forth in claim 5, further comprising means for obtaining information regarding sectors as set forth in claim 1.