JPH10269113A - Method and device for storing information, and disk drive device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make it easy to analyze a hang state by monitoring the time in which an instruction received from an external device is executed, and saving information in a volatile memory to a nonvolatile recording means when the execution time of the instruction exceeds a specified time. SOLUTION: The pressing time in which the MPU 12 of a control part 5 executes the instruction received from an external host device 10, is monitored and when the execution of the instruction does not ends within a specified time, the contents of a RAM 14 as the volatile memory are saved in a reserved area on a magnetic disk 1 as the nonvolatile recording means. Consequently, the disk drive device can dump the contents of the RAM 14 in case of a hang state without requiring an indication from a host device 10. Therefore, even if a hang state that can not be controlled from the host device is entered, the hang state can easily be analyzed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an information storage method, an information storage device, and a disk drive device for storing information in a volatile memory in nonvolatile recording means. More specifically, the present invention is characterized in determining conditions for storing information stored in a volatile memory.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a fixed disk device (HDD)
Has a hard disk controller (HDC), an MPU, and the like. These HDCs and MPUs operate independently of the host device according to instructions from a host device such as a personal computer, and perform recording / reproduction control for the magnetic disk and control for the host device. Commands and data input / output control are performed.

A state in which the HDC, MPU, etc. of the HDD does not respond to the control from the host device, that is, the HDD hangs.
p) may occur. In such a case, it may be desirable to save the contents of the memory (Memory Dump) used by the HDC or MPU in order to investigate the cause of the hang.

Conventionally, a memory dump is stored in a reserved area (Re
served Area).

[0005]

However, as described above, an external command via the interface does not work for soft reset (an external command does not work at all).
In the case of such a complete hang, it is not possible to instruct to hold the information in the memory. If it is desired to know the contents of the memory in such a state, the control board of the HDD on which the HDC, MPU, etc. are mounted is connected to the ICE (In-Circuit).
It was necessary to read out the contents of the memory at that time, waiting for a similar hang state to be reproduced, operating the HDD instead of a control board with an MPU to which the it emulator was connected.

When the contents of the memory at the time when the similar hang state is reproduced are read by ICE,
Dedicated hardware (a personal computer, etc. and a set of peripheral devices) for connecting to a computer is required. For this reason,
It requires a place to install hardware, and depending on the place, it may not be possible to install it. Even if it could be installed, it was necessary to connect dedicated hardware to the ICE and reproduce it. Further, when there is a problem with the control board itself, if the control board is changed to the control board connected to the ICE, a similar hang state cannot be reproduced.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and provides an information storage method and information storage method capable of easily analyzing the cause even in the case of a complete hang where no external command via the interface is effective. It is an object to provide a device and a disk drive device.

[0008]

According to the present invention, there is provided an information storage method comprising: an execution time monitoring step of monitoring at least a time at which a device that records or reproduces data on or from a recording medium executes a command received from an external device; An information storage step of storing information in the volatile memory in the nonvolatile recording means when the execution time of the command exceeds a predetermined time.

[0009] In the information storage device according to the present invention, at least a device that records or reproduces data on or from a recording medium,
An execution time monitoring means for monitoring a time for executing an instruction received from an external device; and an information storage for storing information in a volatile memory in a nonvolatile recording means when an execution time of the instruction exceeds a predetermined time. Means.

A disk drive device according to the present invention comprises: a disk-shaped recording medium; recording / reproducing means for performing recording or reproduction on at least the disk-shaped recording medium;
Control means for controlling recording or reproduction by the recording / reproduction means based on a command received from an external device; volatile memory used by the control means during operation; and execution time for monitoring the execution time of the command by the control means A monitoring means and an information storage means for storing information in the volatile memory in a non-volatile recording means when an execution time of an instruction exceeds a predetermined time.

[0011]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a disk drive according to an embodiment of the present invention.

This disk drive device includes a magnetic disk 1 for recording data, a head 2 for recording / reproducing data on / from the magnetic disk 1, a servo system 3 for controlling the position of the head 2, A recording / reproducing system 4 for controlling recording / reproducing of data by means of
A control unit 5 for controlling data recording / reproduction control, input / output of data with the host device 10, and the like is provided.

The control unit 5 includes a hard disk controller (HDC) 11 for executing servo control and the like, an MPU 12 for executing servo data calculation and error processing for servo control, and an MPU 12 for operating the MPU 12. ROM 1 storing microprograms, data, etc.
3 and a RAM 14 for storing data for servo control or for caching recorded / reproduced data.

Since the operation of the ROM 13 is faster,
The microprogram is stored in the ROM 13. However, in terms of mounting or cost, the ROM 13
There is a limit to the capacity of the magnetic disk 1, and the portion that cannot be stored in the ROM 13 is stored in a predetermined area on the magnetic disk 1 and stored in the RAM 14 when the power is turned on (POR [Power On Reset]). It can be read and executed.

The microprogram is desirably executed on the ROM 13 in terms of execution speed and the like.
Since the capacity of No. 3 is limited, it may be compressed and stored in the ROM 13 and read out to the RAM 14 and executed at the time of execution.

The control unit 5 is capable of executing a plurality of processes of the microprogram in parallel, and one of the processes reproduces a servo sector recorded on the magnetic disk 1. This is an operation for obtaining servo data that is executed every time. In addition, it controls the input / output of commands and data with the information processing device 10, processes when an error occurs, and is read from the host device 10. A read cache process for pre-reading data and storing the data in the RAM 14 and a write cache process for writing data stored in the RAM 14 to a magnetic disk are executed.

The error processing includes retrying for an error during recording / reproducing, assigning an alternative sector when retry is not possible, and error notification when there is no alternative sector.

Incidentally, the occurrence of an unrecoverable error, M
When a malfunction or the like of the PU 12 occurs, the host device 10
As a result, the operation of the disk drive device may be stopped (hang state). For example, when the processing of the MPU 12 enters an infinite loop, a hang state occurs in which the MPU 12 does not respond to an instruction from the host device 10. Alternatively, if the output of all data from the host device 10 has been completed, but the disk drive device has mistakenly determined that all data has not been received due to some unexpected error, the disk drive device still has , And remains in a state of waiting for data reception. In this case, since the output of the data from the host device 10 has been completed, there is no recovery from waiting for reception of the remaining data. When viewed from the host device 10, such a state is the same as the state where the disk drive device is hung.

When the disk drive is hung, it is necessary to reset the disk drive once. However, there are cases where the contents of the RAM 14 of the control unit 5 need to be saved in order to investigate the cause of the hung state. is there. In such a case, conventionally, the contents of the RAM 14 are stored in a reserved area on the magnetic disk 1 by an external command via an interface.

However, in such a method, since an instruction must be supplied from the host device 10 to instruct the storage of the contents of the RAM 14, an instruction such as a soft reset from the host device 10 is completely ineffective. If the hang state occurs, it is not possible to instruct to save the contents of the RAM 14.

By the way, usually, the execution of the command ends within a predetermined time. However, in the case of a hung state, execution of the command does not naturally end within a predetermined time. Therefore, if the execution of the command is not completed within the predetermined time, it is highly likely that the command has been hung. For this reason, in this disk drive device, the execution time of the command is monitored, and if the command is not completed within a predetermined time, it is regarded as a hang state and the contents of the RAM 14 are stored.

FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 are flowcharts showing processing for realizing the above-described operation.

The MPU 12 in FIG. 1 receives a command from the host device 10. Execution of the processing shown in the flowchart of FIG. 2 is started. First, the MPU 12
In step 110, an internal time-out (INTERNAL TIMEOUT) value corresponding to a predetermined time (time-out time) predetermined in a counter (COUNTER) is set, and the counter is initialized. The INTERNAL TIMEOUT value is, for example, a count value in units of 100 ms (for example, when the timeout time is 10 s, the INTERNAL TIMEOUT value is 1).
00. ) Is set in the counter.

In the following step 112, MPU 12
The flag MMAND_PROCESSING is set to 1 indicating that the instruction is being processed. The control unit 5 in FIG. 1 includes an interrupt timer that generates an interrupt to the MPU 12 at a predetermined interval, and generates an interrupt at an interval of, for example, 100 ms while the COMMAND_PROCESSING flag is 1. When this interrupt is generated, the MPU 12 executes the processing shown in FIG. 3 for each interrupt.

The MPU 12 monitors in step 114 whether the processing for the instruction has been completed. If the processing for the instruction has not been completed, the MPU 12 waits in this step 114. If the processing for the instruction has been completed, the MPU 12 proceeds to step 116 and executes the command COMMAND_PR.
The processing ends with the flag OCESSING set to 0 indicating that the instruction is not being processed.

Generally, in a disk drive device,
Since a plurality of commands from the host device 10 are executed in parallel, the processing described above is executed in parallel for each command.

When an interrupt occurs due to the setting of the flag in step 112, the MPU 12 executes the processing shown in FIG.

First, the MPU 12 determines whether or not the COMMAND_PROCESSING flag is 1 in Step 120. If this flag is 1, the instruction is still being processed, and the routine proceeds to the next step 122. This flag is 1
Otherwise, since the instruction has been completed within the above-mentioned timeout period, the process temporarily returns (ends the interrupt processing). If another interruption is performed in this state, the processing from step 120 is executed again.

Next, the MPU 12 determines whether or not the value of the counter is 0 in step 122. If the value of the counter is not 0, it is within the timeout period, and the routine proceeds to the next step 124. If the value of the counter is 0, the timeout period has already elapsed, and the memory dump should have been saved in the reserved area on the magnetic disk 1 when the processing of FIG. 3 was executed last time.
Proceed to 32 to execute error processing.

In step 124, the MPU 12 subtracts 1 from the value of the counter. In the following step 126, the MPU
12 judges whether the value of the counter is 0 or not. If the value of the counter is 0, it means that the command has not been completed within the timeout period, so that the disk drive is regarded as hung, and the contents of the RAM 14 in the reserved area on the magnetic disk 1 (memory dump) Save.
On the other hand, if the value of the counter is not 0, the process returns once. In this case, an interrupt occurs again after 100 ms has elapsed, and the processing from step 120 is repeated again.

Such processing is performed at predetermined time intervals (10
0 ms), and the counter value is decreased by one. If the processing of the instruction is completed within the time-out period, COMMAN is executed in step 116 in FIG.
Since the D_PROCESSING flag is set to 0, the contents of the RAM 14 are not saved. If the disk drive is hung for some reason, the processing of the command is not completed within the timeout period. After the timeout period elapses, the process proceeds from step 126 to step 128 in FIG. It is stored in a reserved area on the disk 1.

As described above, in this disk drive device, the MPU 12 monitors the processing time of the command, and if the processing is not completed within a predetermined time, saves the contents of the RAM 14 in the reserved area on the magnetic disk 1. I do. For this reason,
In this disk drive device, a memory dump in the case of a hung state can be performed without requiring an instruction from the host device 10. Therefore, the host device 10
Even when a complete hang state occurs, in which no instruction (command) is received, the contents of the RAM 14 can be reliably stored on the magnetic disk 1.

Conventionally, R when a complete hang condition occurs
If you want to know the contents of AM, you need to install the control board of the disk drive device on which HDC, MPU, etc. are mounted.
Instead of operating a disk drive device instead of a control board with an MPU to which a CE (In-Circuit Emulator) is connected, wait for a similar hang state to be reproduced, and then read the contents of the memory at that time. .

In the disk drive according to this embodiment, when the disk drive itself hangs in the RAM 1
4 is recorded on the magnetic disk 1, so that dedicated hardware such as an ICE is not required. For this reason, there is no need for a place for installing these hardware, and there is no cost for preparing them, so that the cause can be easily analyzed.

For example, if a hang-up occurs at the customer,
It is often impossible to bring in ICE or the like. Even in such a case, this disk drive device stores the contents of the RAM 14 when the device itself hangs on the magnetic disk 1.
Since it is recorded above, it can be easily read from the host device 10 after resetting, for example. Therefore, the cause of the hang can be easily analyzed without bringing in dedicated hardware such as an ICE.

Further, when there is a problem in the control board itself, if the control board is changed to the control board connected to the ICE, there is a problem that a similar hang state cannot be reproduced. In this disk drive device, even in such a case, the contents of the RAM 14 are recorded on the magnetic disk 1, so that the cause of the hang can be analyzed.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment. In the above-described embodiment, a case where a magnetic disk is used as a recording medium has been described. For example, an optical disk such as a magneto-optical disk, a flash memory The present invention can also be applied to a device using a semiconductor storage device such as described above as a recording medium.

In addition, for example, a configuration can be used in which the use or non-use of the memory dump storage function can be controlled. With such a configuration, it is easy to determine whether to use the memory dump storage function depending on the application. Can switch. Further, a configuration may be employed in which the timeout time is read from the table recorded in the ROM 13 or a predetermined area on the magnetic disk 1 at the time of execution. With such a configuration, the timeout period can be easily changed by changing the table as needed.

In the above embodiment, for example, the MPU
The software executed by the MPU 12 monitors the execution time of the instruction and saves a memory dump when the processing is not completed within the timeout period. However, the cost may increase. If a failure occurs in the operation of the MPU 12 itself by executing the same processing using another hardware (for example, a dedicated circuit or another MPU in the case of using a plurality of MPUs or the like) And the like, a memory dump can be saved, and the reliability can be improved. In addition, changes can be made as appropriate within the scope of the technical idea of the present invention.

[0040]

According to the present invention, when at least a device that performs recording or reproduction on a recording medium executes a command received from an external device exceeds a predetermined time, information stored in a volatile memory is stored. Is stored in the non-volatile recording means. For this reason, the information in the volatile memory at the time of the hung state can be saved by the device of the hung state alone.

Therefore, even in the case where the hang state cannot be controlled from the external device, the place where the ICE (In-Circuit Emulator) is installed and the I
The analysis of the hang state can be easily performed without being affected by the condition such as the limitation of the number of CEs.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a disk drive device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a command processing time monitoring process in the disk drive device according to one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a memory dump saving process in the disk drive device according to one embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 magnetic disk, 4 recording / reproducing system, 5 control unit, 1
0 Host device, 11 HDC, 12 MPU, 13 R
OM, 14 RAM

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Keiji Kobayashi 1 Kirihara-cho, Fujisawa-shi, Kanagawa IBM Japan, Ltd. Fujisawa office (72) Inventor Kazunari Tsuchimoto 1 Kirihara-cho, Fujisawa-shi, Kanagawa Address IBM Japan, Ltd. Fujisawa Office

Claims (5)

[Claims] Receiving an instruction, monitoring an execution time of the instruction, and storing information in a volatile memory in a nonvolatile memory when the execution time of the instruction is equal to or longer than a predetermined value. And an information storage method. 2. An information storage method for storing, in a recording unit, information in a volatile memory used by at least an apparatus for recording or reproducing data on or from a recording medium, wherein the apparatus stores a command received from an external apparatus. An execution time monitoring step of monitoring the execution time of the instruction; and an information storage step of storing information in the volatile memory in a nonvolatile recording unit when the execution time of the instruction exceeds a predetermined time. An information storage method characterized by the following. 3. The execution time monitoring step monitors the execution time of the instruction by measuring an elapsed time after receiving the instruction or an elapsed time from the start of execution of the instruction. Item 2. The information storage method according to Item 2. 4. An information storage device for storing, in a recording unit, information in a volatile memory used at least by a device that records or reproduces data on or from a recording medium, wherein the device stores a command received from an external device. Execution time monitoring means for monitoring the execution time of the instruction, and information storage means for storing information in the volatile memory in a nonvolatile recording means when the execution time of the instruction exceeds a predetermined time. An information storage device characterized by the above-mentioned. 5. A disk-shaped recording medium, recording / reproducing means for performing recording or reproduction on at least the disk-shaped recording medium, and controlling recording or reproduction by the recording / reproducing means based on a command received from an external device. Control means, a volatile memory used by the control means during operation, an execution time monitoring means for monitoring the execution time of the instruction by the control means, and when the execution time of the instruction exceeds a predetermined time. An information storage unit for storing information in the volatile memory in a non-volatile recording unit.