JPH05109175A - Information reproducing method of optical card - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the reliability of the bits of information by storing the error information of each sector read beforehand and extracting the defect information of a card medium based on the stored error information. CONSTITUTION:By storing continuously the error information at a host computer 2 side, the error information can be developed to a map (distribution chart) with the medium surface of a card as an image. At sectors 0-3, 7-A, and E-F, the reading of the control information is stably performed, and at sectors 4-6 and B-D, it is found that errors frequently occur. Thus, the occurence distribution condition of errors on the medium surface is investigated, an area with less occurence of errors is selected for the position of the medium to be used, and thus, the unstability of the recording condition of the control information due to the defect, etc., of the media is evaded, and the reliability of the bits of information can be improved.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information reproducing method for an information recording / reproducing apparatus such as an optical card.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, in a management information section of an optical card for recording information, one track is provided with information recording sectors divided into a desired number (area length) of a user according to a purpose of use. This sector is the minimum unit when recording or reproducing information.

The recording of information on such an optical card includes information to be recorded and an error correction code for restoring the original information when a part of the read information is lost, and
A code or the like for determining whether or not the information has been correctly recorded at the time of reading is subjected to predetermined conversion and written in the sector.

When an error occurs for some reason when writing to the sector and writing cannot be performed, the sector number and, if necessary, the track number are updated inside the optical card information recording / reproducing apparatus, and other management is performed. The information is written again. If the writing is not completed even after performing the rewriting operation a predetermined number of times, the optical card information recording / reproducing apparatus usually sends an error code to the host computer, and then temporarily interrupts the writing process. Eject the card and wait for it to be reinserted.
Then, after the card is reinserted, the writing process is executed again.

In the information written by such a procedure, in a track unit, there are scattered sectors in which information is not correctly recorded in a series of sectors. When reading these pieces of information, if the reading method in units of sectors is used, every time the management information of each sector is read, a control code (hereinafter referred to as a command) is transferred from the host computer, and read management information is received. Also, since the error code is fetched, it takes a long time to process and is inefficient. For this reason, the efficiency is usually improved by reading in track units.

[0006]

However, when information is read in track units as in the prior art, the only error information that can be obtained is whether or not the entire track has been read normally. , No error information is detected for each sector.

Therefore, in order to obtain error information on a sector-by-sector basis, a function (means) for individually obtaining error information of each sector is attached to a sector for one track. However, the error information of each sector obtained by the above-mentioned function is only the error information for each track, and it is possible to grasp in what state the locations of error information are distributed over the entire optical card. There wasn't.
Therefore, the same processing is repeated from the beginning for each track, and the error information in sector units cannot be effectively used for the next management information access processing.

Therefore, the present invention estimates the error position distribution of the entire card based on the error information for each sector obtained when reading the information recorded on the optical card for each track, and selects the sector to write the information. By doing so, it is intended to improve the efficiency of the writing process and improve the reliability of information.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an information reproducing method of an optical card for reading information written in sector units by using an information recording / reproducing apparatus of an optical card, Optical card information characterized by storing error information of each sector read in advance, extracting defect information of a card medium based on the stored error information, and selecting a sector to write based on the extracted defect information Provide a playback method.

[0010]

With the above information reproducing method, the error information written in the sector unit which is already stored in the optical card is read out in track units, and the defect information of the card medium is distributed based on the error information corresponding to the medium surface. A sector to be extracted as a state and to write new information is selected.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a connection state between an optical card recording / reproducing apparatus and a host computer. The optical card recording / reproducing apparatus 1 is connected to a host computer 2, receives a command from the host computer 2, and writes or reads information to or from an optical card 3 loaded according to the operation rule of the command. There is.

FIG. 2 shows a recording state of management information and a state of a position where error information exists on the medium surface of the optical card 3. The management data part d1 on this media side is the optical car 3
It is a part showing management information of actual data recorded on the disk. Here, it is assumed that the management information portion is written on the optical card in a format of 16 sectors per track with 16 sectors. Further, it is assumed that the actual data part d2 is written on the optical card in a format of 1024 bytes per sector for one track and one sector. Next, the operation of reading information from the management information section and writing the management information in this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, an optical card on which management information has been written is loaded into the optical card recording / reproducing apparatus 1 and it is determined whether or not the reading of the management information is completed (step S1). When reading the management information from now on, or when the reading of the management information is not completed (NO), the management information section recorded in the track T1 of the optical card is read in track units, and 16 × on the track T1. Information of 16 = 256 bytes is stored in the memory on the host computer side (step S2). Here, sectors 4, B, and C indicated by ER on the track T1 shown in FIG. 2 indicate sectors that could not be read.

After the management information of the track T1 is stored, a command (hereinafter referred to as a read error check command) for obtaining error information in sector units of the stored track is sent from the host computer 2 side. It is issued to the card recording / reproducing apparatus 1. The error information in sector units read by the command is set every time one track is read on the optical card recording / reproducing apparatus 1 side, and after checking the read state of each sector, the error information is stored in the optical card recording / reproducing apparatus 1. It is sequentially stored in the provided buffer memory. After being stored, the sector unit error information is transferred to the host computer 2 side by a read error check command (step S3).

It is assumed that the information obtained by the read error check command is composed of 16 bytes per track as shown in FIG. 4 and has an information amount of 1 byte per sector. If this information is "0", it indicates that the management information of the corresponding sector has been read correctly,
If it is not "0", the error information generated in each sector at the time of reading, such as the occurrence of track deviation / error correction cannot be performed, or the sector which has been read is not yet written, is set depending on the value. A numerical example of these error information is shown in FIG.

After that, similarly, for the tracks T2 to T4, after the management information is read and the error information is stored in the error information storage area (step S).
4) Return to step S1 and determine whether the reading of the management information from the optical card 3 is completed. If it is determined in this determination that the reading of the management information is completed (YE
S), it is determined whether or not a new management information writing process is performed (step S5), and if the writing process is not performed (NO), a process other than the management information writing is performed (step S6), and the writing is performed. When processing is performed (YES)
Is set to an area (track, sector) to which the management information is newly written (step S7).

Next, the track of the write target area,
With respect to the sector, the position of the error information which is developed in a map and corresponds to the medium surface of the optical card obtained by the above-described procedure is used to identify whether the sector and track are prone to error (step S8). .. If the tracks and sectors in the area are frequent, for example, if an error occurs 2-3 times (YES), the process returns to step S7,
Move to the next write target area, and steps S8, S9
The process of is repeated. If the number of errors in the tracks and sectors in the write target area is small (NO), the new management information is written (step S1).
0).

Then, it is judged whether or not all the writing processing for the optical card attached is completed, and if it is not completed (N
In O), the process returns to step S5 and the management information writing process is repeated.

As described above in detail, while the management information is read, the error information detected by the optical card information recording / reproducing apparatus 1 is one track at a time. This error information is read by the host computer 2 side. By storing the error information consecutively, the error information as shown in FIG. 6 can be developed in a map (distribution map) with the media side of the card as an image. From this, sectors 0-3, 7-A, E-
In F, the management information is being read stably,
It can be seen that errors frequently occur in the sectors 4 to 6 and BD.

The sectors E to F of the track T4 are shown in FIG.
As shown in (1), it can be seen that this is a sector in which the management information is not written and is different from the case where the written information cannot be read. When writing is performed on the tracks after the track T4 on the basis of these information, an error is likely to occur, and the optical card recording / reproducing for the optical card recording is performed so that the sectors 4 to 6 and the sectors B to D are not used. Control the device. In this way, by checking the distribution status of error occurrences on the media side and selecting the area of the media to be used in the area with few error occurrences, the instability of the management information recording status due to media defects etc. is avoided. However, the reliability of information can be improved.

In this embodiment, in order to obtain the read error information in sector units from the optical card, the read error check command is used to obtain error information of each sector for one track and the actual data to be stored. Although the fetching process is performed separately, as shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, the error information is added to the beginning or the end of the actual data to be read, and the information is passed for efficient processing. You can also do it.

From the above, according to the present invention, the management information on the track composed of a plurality of sectors is converted into a map by sequentially storing the error information for each sector on the card, which is obtained when collectively reading one track. The reliability of the information itself is improved by avoiding the error-prone portion of the medium based on this information and using it. Further, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and it goes without saying that various modifications and applications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention.

[0024]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, when reading in track units, error information for each sector of the read information is mapped, and the position of the medium to be used thereafter is set to a portion where few errors occur. The reliability of information can be improved by limiting the above. Can be provided.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a connection state between an optical card recording / reproducing apparatus and a host computer.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a data recording state and error information existing state on a medium surface of an optical card.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation of reading information from and writing management information in the management information section of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a format of error information.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the content of error information for an arbitrary code number of error information.

FIG. 6 is a diagram in which error information is mapped so as to correspond to the medium surface of an optical card.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a data format when error information is read and added to the beginning of data.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a data format when error information is added to the end of read data.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Optical card recording / reproducing device, 2 ... Host computer, 3 ... Optical card.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An information recording / reproducing apparatus for an optical card is used,
In the information reproducing method of the optical card for reading the information written in the sector unit, the error information of each sector read in advance is stored, the defect information of the card medium is extracted based on the stored error information, and this extraction A method for reproducing information on an optical card, characterized in that a sector to be written is selected according to the defect information.