JPH05182336A - Controller for optical disk auto-changer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To successively perform a system operation without adversely affecting the whole system when a fault is generated in a part of plural optical disk drives, by logically cutting off the drive from the system. CONSTITUTION:The fault generated in the optical disk drive 12 during the operation, is detected by a disk changer control part 41, and a set instruction FS 2 of a fault flag and a device number are sent to a magnetic disk control part 42 by making an error status signal ES to pass through only one set-up processing part 43 together with a device number of the drive 12. The fault flag F3 on an auto-changer control file 51 is thereby set. Subsequently, when an eject instruction DM is issued to the control part 41 by the processing part 43, the drive 12 is stopped by the control part 41 to put the optical disk D back to a housing rack 11. By this procedure, the device number and a transfer to only one operation are displayed by a only one message display part 44, and the drive 12 is logically cut off from the system, then the operation is performed by using the normal drive 12 only.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an optical disc autochanger control device for automatically performing disc exchange work between a plurality of optical disc drives and disc storage shelves.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a plurality of optical discs such as laser discs or compact discs are stored in a storage shelf, and an optical disc arbitrarily designated by the user is loaded into an optical disc drive to carry out disc reproduction. There is a disc playback system.
In recent years, a large number of optical disc drives have been made available in the system to enable continuous reproduction over a plurality of optical discs without causing idle time due to disc exchange.

However, in such a system,
If one of the optical disk drives fails,
The effect had spread to the entire system, and the operation of the entire system had to be interrupted. That is, this is
This is because the conventional system does not allow the optical disk drive to be logically separated from the system by itself. Furthermore, these problems become more prominent as the number of optical disk drives in the system increases.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is intended to solve such problems, and even if a part of the optical disk drive group connected to the system fails, the optical disk drive in which the failure occurs is used as a system. It is an object of the present invention to provide a control device for an optical disc autochanger that can continuously operate the system without any adverse effect on the entire system by logically disconnecting the system.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, an optical disc autochanger control device of the present invention is an optical disc autochanger control device which automatically exchanges discs for a plurality of optical disc drives. Storage means for storing first flag information indicating whether the drive is currently in use and second flag information indicating whether the drive is in an inoperable state, and operation of the optical disk drive is started. Then, if a failure occurs in the means for writing the first flag information indicating that the optical disk drive is currently in use into the storage means and the operating optical disk drive, the optical disk drive is operated in the storage means. Means for writing second flag information indicating the disabled state, When a disk loading request to the disk drive is generated, the currently unused and operable optical disk drive is determined based on each flag information stored in the storage means, and the disk is loaded into the optical disk drive. And means for controlling the optical disc autochanger.

[0006]

According to the present invention, when the operation of the optical disk drive is started, the first flag information indicating that the optical disk drive is currently in use is written in the storage means.
Further, when a failure occurs in the optical disk drive in operation, second flag information indicating that the optical disk drive is in an inoperable state is written in the storage means. When a disk loading request is issued to the optical disk drive, an optical disk drive that is currently unused and is operable is determined based on each flag information stored in the storage means, and the optical disk autochanger performs the disk loading to this optical disk drive. Control is performed.

Therefore, according to the present invention, when a part of the optical disk drive group in the system fails, the optical disk drive can be logically disconnected from the system, and the operation of the entire system is adversely affected. The system can be operated continuously without any need.

[0008]

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

FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining the configuration of a system using a control device for an optical disc autochanger according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 10 has a built-in disc storage rack 11 accommodating a plurality of optical discs D and a plurality of optical disc drives 12 so that the optical discs D can be automatically attached to and detached from each optical disc drive 12 in response to a request. It is a configured optical disc autochanger. The optical disk autochanger 10 is connected to the system bus 30 via the input / output controller 20, and is further connected to the microprocessor 40, the magnetic disk device 50, etc. through the system bus 30. The recording medium of the magnetic disk device 50 stores an autochanger management file 51, which is an information source necessary for managing the optical disc autochanger 10. In this autochanger management file 51, the device numbers F1 of all the optical disc drives 12 mounted on the optical disc autochanger 10 are registered in advance, and the individual optical disc drives 12 are currently associated with the device numbers F1. A use flag F2, which is the first flag information indicating whether or not it is in use, and a failure flag F3, which is the second flag information indicating whether or not each optical disk drive 12 is currently in an inoperable state, are written. It is supposed to be. Further, in the internal configuration of the microprocessor 40, reference numeral 41 is a disc changer control unit for controlling the optical disc autochanger 10 (including the optical disc drive 12) through the input / output controller 20. When the operation of the optical disc drive 12 is started, the disc changer control unit 41 causes the magnetic disc control unit 42 to set a use flag F2 indicating that the optical disc drive 12 is currently in use in the auto changer management file 51. Flag set instruction FS1
Is sent together with the device number, and when some trouble occurs in the operating optical disk drive 12, the error status signal ES is sent together with the device number to the single lung setup processing section 43. When receiving the error status signal ES from the disc changer control unit 41, the one-lung setup processing unit 43 sets a failure flag F3 indicating that the corresponding optical disc drive 12 is currently in the inoperable state in the autochanger management file 51. The flag set command FS2 is issued to the magnetic disk control unit 42. Further, the one lung setup processing unit 43 issues a command DM to the disc changer control unit 41 to return the optical disc D mounted on the optical disc drive 12 to the disc storage shelf 11, and further, a one lung message display processing unit described later. The activation command MD is issued to 44.
The one-lung message display processing unit 44 performs a process of displaying on the display device (not shown) together with the device number of the optical disc drive 12 in which the failure has occurred in response to the activation command MD. Based on the flag information obtained from the autochanger management file 51, 45 determines the currently unused and operable (non-failing) optical disk drive 12, and issues an instruction MM to load the optical disk D in this optical disk drive 12. This is a disk drive selection processing unit issued to the disk changer control unit 41.

Next, the operation represented by this embodiment will be described.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the procedure of the single lung operation setup process when a failure occurs in the optical disk drive 12. Here, the single lung operation means that when a failure occurs in any of the optical disk drives 12 in the optical disk autochanger 10, the failure-caused optical disk drive 12 is logically separated from the system and only the normal optical disk drive 12 is used. To operate the system.

When the disc changer control unit 41 detects that some trouble has occurred in the operating optical disc drive 12, the disc changer control unit 41 outputs the error status signal ES together with the device number of the operating optical disc drive 12. It is sent to the lung setup processing unit 43.

When the one-lung setup processing section 43 obtains the error status signal ES and the apparatus number (step 201), it sends the failure flag set command FS2 and the apparatus number to the magnetic disk control section 42. As a result, the magnetic disk control unit 42 causes the autochanger management file 5
Failure flag F3 corresponding to the corresponding device number F1 on 1
Is set (step 202).

Subsequently, the one-lung set-up processing unit 43 instructs the disc changer control unit 41 to eject the disc D.
Issue M. Upon receiving this command DM, the disc changer control unit 41 stops the operation of the optical disc drive 12, and then operates the disc autochanger 10 to return the optical disc D mounted on the optical disc drive 12 to the disc storage shelf 11 (step 203). ).

After that, the one-lung setup processing section 43 sends the activation command MD and the device number to the one-lung message display processing section 45. In response to this command MD, the one-lung message display processing unit 45 displays the device number and the fact that the one-lung operation has been performed as a message on the display device (step 20).
4). With the above, the setup process for the single lung operation ends.

FIG. 3 shows the procedure of the optical disk drive selection process when a disk loading request is made.

When a disk loading request is issued, the disk drive selection processing section 45 issues a read command FR of the autochanger management file 51 to the magnetic disk control section 42. In response to this command FR, the magnetic disk control unit 42 reads the information of the autochanger management file 51 via the input / output controller 60.

The disk drive selection processing unit 45 receives these pieces of information, that is, each device number F, through the system bus 30.
The use flag F2 and the failure flag F3 respectively associated with 1 are obtained (steps 301, 302), and based on these flag information, the operable optical disk drive 12, that is, currently unused and logically separated from the system. The optical disc drive 12 that is not in operation (not in the inoperable state) is determined (step 303). Then, a command MM is issued to the disc changer control unit 41 to load the optical disc D into the optical disc drive 12 (step 304). As a result, the optical disk drive 12
The optical disc D is loaded into the disc, and the disc reproduction process by the single lung operation is started.

The automatic changer management file 51
The upper failure flag F3 indicates the failed optical disk drive 1
It will be reset by the utility's single lung release function after the repair of item 2 is completed.

Thus, according to the control device for the optical disc autochanger of this embodiment, even if any of the optical disc drives 12 mounted on the optical disc autochanger 10 fails, the optical disc drive 12 is logically disconnected from the system. The system can be continuously operated without any adverse effect on the entire system.

[0022]

As described above, according to the control device for the optical disc autochanger of the present invention, even if some of the plural optical disc drives in the system have a fault, the faulty optical disc drive is Since it can be logically separated from the system, the system can be continuously operated without adversely affecting the entire system.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining the configuration of a system using a control device for an optical disc autochanger according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a procedure of a single lung operation setup process when a failure occurs in an optical disc drive in the system of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a procedure of optical disc drive selection processing when a disc loading request is generated in the system of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Optical disc auto changer, 11 ... Disc storage rack, 12 ... Optical disc drive, 41 ... Disc changer control unit, 42 ... Magnetic disc control unit, 43 ... One lung setup processing unit, 44 ... One lung message display processing unit, 45 ... Disc Drive selection processing unit, 50 ... Magnetic disk device, 51 ... Autochanger management file.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A control device for an optical disc autochanger that automatically exchanges discs for a plurality of optical disc drives, wherein first flag information indicating whether or not each of the optical disc drives is currently in use and an inoperable state. Storage means for storing second flag information indicating whether the optical disk drive is in use, and a first storage means for indicating that the optical disk drive is currently in use when the operation of the optical disk drive is started. Means for writing flag information, and means for writing second flag information indicating that the optical disk drive is in an inoperable state in the storage means when a failure occurs in the operating optical disk drive, When a disk loading request is issued, each flag information stored in the storage means is added. Hazuki currently judged unused in and operable optical disc drive, the control apparatus for an optical disc autochanger, characterized in that and means for controlling said optical disc autochanger to perform disc loading into the optical disc drive.