JPH11317023A - Information recording method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an information recording method capable of interrupting information writing before all alternate recording areas are used up even when the information writing is performed in a state where a recording medium is stained. SOLUTION: This information recording method comprises a step S1 of wiring information in an information recording area, alternate processing steps S3 to S9 of writing information in an alternate recording area provided separately from the information recording area, a step S4 of prescribing for the number N of retrying times for performing information writing in each of the alternate processing steps, and a step S10 of reducing the number of retrying times by a specified value when the information is written in the alternate recording area within the number of retrying times. The method further comprises a step S11 of increasing/reducing the number of retrying times to a specified value when the information is written in the information recording area without carrying out any alternate processing steps.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information recording method for recording information on a recording medium such as an optical disk, a magnetic disk or an optical card.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional information recording method, when recording information on a recording medium such as an optical disk or a magnetic disk, if the information cannot be recorded in a desired recording area due to a defect or a flaw of the recording medium, Attempt to record in the same recording area several times, and if recording is still not possible, record the information in a previously reserved replacement recording area and read the information from the replacement recording area. Information may be read.

[0003] When a write-once recording medium such as an optical card is used, the same replacement process may be performed in this case as well. Therefore, a recording area in which information recording has failed once is determined to be an area that cannot be used again, and replacement processing for another recording area is generally performed immediately.

[0004] By the way, even if there is a replacement recording area used in the above-mentioned replacement processing, if there is a defect or a flaw in the recording area, unused recording areas are sequentially placed in the replacement recording area. Attempts to record information in the area (retry), and if the information is not correctly recorded (written) within a predetermined number of retries, the processing may be interrupted with an error in the recording operation in the first place. In the case of a recording medium, such as a card, which is carried with the recording surface exposed without being placed in a special protective case, it is assumed that foreign substances such as fingerprints and dust adhere to the medium surface and the medium surface is damaged. You. In this case, the frequency of occurrence of errors at the time of recording information changes depending on how much dirt such as fingerprints and dust adheres. In the worst case, dirt may reach a level at which recording is almost impossible.

FIG. 2 shows an operation flow of a replacement process applied to a conventional information recording method. This operation flow is, when recording information in a certain recording area,
When the information cannot be written, writing is attempted again to a vacant recording area (sector) in the separately prepared replacement recording area. In this case, writing is attempted again in the empty recording area (sector), and if the writing is successful within the specified number of times, the replacement history is registered in another replacement history recording area.

As shown in FIG. 2, first, an attempt is made to write information in a designated recording area (step S).
1). Then, it is determined whether or not the information has been correctly written (step S2). If the information has been correctly written, the process ends normally. If the information has not been correctly written, the process proceeds to step S3 and subsequent steps.

In step S3, a counter value C of a retry counter for storing the number of retries for the replacement recording area is initialized to one. Then, the predetermined maximum number of retries M is compared with the counter value C (step S4). If the counter value C exceeds the maximum number of retries (specific number) M, it is determined that the writing has failed. .

On the other hand, when the counter value C is equal to the prescribed number M
In the following cases, it is checked whether or not a replacement recording area remains (step S5). If there is no recording area, it is determined that writing has failed. If the replacement recording area remains, an attempt is made to write (retry) the information originally intended to be recorded in the step S1 into the replacement recording area (step S6).

Then, it is determined whether or not the writing has been performed correctly (step S7). If the writing has not been performed correctly, the counter value C is incremented by 1 (step S8), and the replacement process after step S4 is performed again. If the writing is correct, the history of the replacement performed in this retry is registered in the replacement history recording area (step S9), and the process ends normally.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a recording area for explaining how information is recorded on a write-once type recording medium such as an optical card. As shown in FIG. 3, the recording area 20 of the recording medium is provided with four areas including a directory area 21, a replacement history recording area 22, an information recording area 23, and a replacement recording area 24. In each area, there are a plurality of sectors which are the minimum recording units of information. In the drawing, each sector is given a sector number such as 0000 or 0001.

Here, a description will be given of a replacement process of writing information to the sector 3002 of the replacement recording area 24 when writing of information to the sector 2002 of the information recording area 23 fails, for example, with reference to the operation flow of FIG.

In the replacement process, the maximum number of retries M is defined as 5, and the number of sectors 3 in the replacement recording area 24 is changed.
000 has been used, and the replacement history recording area 22
Sector 1001 and sector 200 of the information recording area 23
1 is also used.

Attempt to write information to the sector 2002 of the information recording area 23 (step S1), and when it is determined that the writing has failed (step S2), the counter value C of the retry counter is initialized to 1 (step S1). Step S
3).

In this case, since C = 1 and M = 5, C ≦ M
Holds (step S4), and since the sector 3001 and subsequent sectors of the replacement recording area 24 are free (step S5), an attempt is made to write information to this sector 3001 (step S6).

Then, it is determined whether or not the writing has been performed correctly (step S7). If the writing has not been correctly performed, the counter value C is incremented by 1 (step S8), and the replacement process after step S4 is performed again.

In this case, the counter value is C = 2,
It is determined that the relationship of ≦ M holds (step S
4). Then, it is confirmed that the area after the sector 3002 of the replacement recording area 24 is vacant (step S5), and an attempt is made to write (retry) information to the sector 3002 (step S6).

When the information has been correctly written in the sector 3002 (step S7), the history of the replacement performed by this retry (that is, information that the sector 2002 has been replaced by the sector 3002) is stored in the sector 1002 of the replacement history recording area 22. It is registered (step S9), and the process ends normally.

[0018]

When such a recording method is used, if the recording medium is dirty to the extent that recording cannot be performed at all, the number of retries reaches the maximum number of retries during the first replacement process, and a write failure occurs. It is determined that the further consumption of the replacement recording area 24 is no longer necessary, so that no problem occurs.

However, if the recording medium is dirty to such an extent that the writing of information is slightly hindered, the spare recording area 24 may be wasted. Because
In the case of such a degree of dirt, a replacement process occurs every time information is written, and a retry occurs during the process. However, each replacement process succeeds within the maximum number of retries. Therefore, the device determines that no problem has occurred in the writing of the information, and the writing of the information is continued. Then, every time information is written, the replacement recording area 24 is wastefully consumed for the retry during the replacement processing, and the wastefully consumed area is accumulated.

For example, in the case where the writing fails with a probability of about 80%, the information is simply calculated and the information recording area 23 which is about five times as large as the information to be recorded is used. If you continue to use recording media,
If only about 20% of the total recording capacity is recorded, the entire information recording area 23 will be used up.

Further, when the replacement recording area 24 is set as a fixed value in advance, the replacement recording area 24
In many cases, the recording area is set to be considerably smaller than the information recording area 23. Therefore, if the replacement processing occurs too frequently, the replacement recording area 24 will be used up immediately.
In particular, in a write-once recording medium, an area that has been used once cannot be reused, and thus a write-once recording medium that has completely used up the replacement recording area 24 is,
In effect, it cannot be used to record new information.

The present invention has been made in order to solve such a problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide a method for writing information in a state where a recording medium is dirty before using up all the replacement recording areas. An object of the present invention is to provide an information recording method capable of interrupting information writing processing.

[0023]

In order to achieve the above object, an information recording method according to the present invention comprises a step of writing information to a predetermined information recording area, and a step of writing information to the information recording area. In this case, it is possible to perform the information writing process on the replacement recording area provided separately from the information recording area, and to perform the information writing process in the replacement processing step. A step of defining the number of retries; and a step of reducing the number of retries by a predetermined value when the information is written to the replacement recording area within the number of retries.

[0024]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An information recording method according to one embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. As a recording medium applied to the present embodiment, as an example, a recording medium having the same configuration as the recording medium shown in FIG. 3 is applied, and the same components are denoted by the same reference numerals. The description is omitted.

As shown in FIG. 1, in the information recording method of the present embodiment, the number of retries N that can be retried to the replacement recording area 24 (see FIG. 3, the same applies hereinafter) when writing fails is a variable. And the number of retries N is reduced by 1 each time the replacement process is completed once.
10 and a process of step S11 for setting the number of retries N to an initial value Nf defined in advance when information can be correctly written in the information recording area 23 (see FIG. 3, the same applies hereinafter) without performing the replacement process. Is added to the conventional operation flow of FIG.

Hereinafter, the information recording method of the present embodiment will be described with reference to the operation flow of FIG. In this operation flow, the number of retries N is defined in advance when a recording medium such as an optical card is inserted into a recording drive (not shown) and the recording medium is first accessed. It is assumed that the initial value Nf is set. That is, in the information recording method of the present embodiment, when the recording medium is replaced, the set value of the number of retries N up to that time is canceled. In this case, as a method of recognizing whether or not the recording medium has been accessed for the first time, it can be confirmed by, for example, driver software or the like built in the recording drive device.

As shown in FIG. 1, first, an attempt is made to write information in the designated information recording area 23 (step S1). Then, it is determined whether or not the information has been correctly written (step S2). If the information has been correctly written, a retry count N indicating the number of retries is set to a predetermined initial value N.
f (step S11), and the process ends normally.

On the other hand, if it is determined that the information could not be correctly written (step S2), the process proceeds to step S3.
The process proceeds to the subsequent replacement process. In step S3, a counter value C of a retry counter that stores the number of retries for the replacement recording area 24 is initialized to one.

Then, the number of retries N is compared with the counter value C (step S4). If the counter value C exceeds the number of retries N, it is determined that the writing has failed. On the other hand, if the counter value C is equal to or less than the number of retries N, it is checked whether or not the replacement recording area 24 remains (step S5). If there is no recording area, it is determined that the writing has failed. When the replacement recording area 24 remains, the replacement recording area is originally set in step S
Attempt to write (retry) the information to be recorded in the first stage (step S6).

Then, it is determined whether or not the writing has been performed correctly (step S7). If the writing has not been performed correctly, the counter value C is incremented by 1 (step S8), and the replacement process after step S4 is performed again. If the writing is correct, the history of the replacement performed in this retry is registered in the replacement history recording area 22 (see FIG. 3, the same applies hereinafter) (step S9), and the number N of retries is reduced by 1 (step S10). , And ends normally.

As described above, according to the information recording method of the present embodiment, even if information is written in a state in which the recording medium is dirty, the information writing process is performed before all the replacement recording areas are used up. Can be interrupted. In particular,
The number of retries N that can be retried each time the replacement process occurs
Therefore, if the replacement process occurs continuously, the number of retries N gradually decreases, and the probability that the recording (writing) of information eventually fails becomes large. This has the effect of not consuming the information recording area 23 of the recording medium.

If the information can be written correctly, the number of retries N is returned to the initial value Nf. Therefore, as long as the replacement process does not occur continuously, the retry process is almost the same as the conventional one. Will be performed.

The present invention is not limited to the configuration of the above-described embodiment, but can be variously modified. For example, in step S10 of FIG. 1, the number N of retries that can be retried is reduced by one,
, And depending on the value of N, for example, 0.
The value may be exponentially reduced by multiplying by a numerical value of 1 or less such as 9. In addition, the value of N may be determined by combining them, or N may be reduced when it occurs several times instead of changing N in one turn. Furthermore, if the value that decays from N is the counter value C that was retried immediately before, N represents the total number of retries that can be performed, and a more rigorous determination method than in the above example can be obtained.

On the other hand, if the information is correctly written without changing even once, the process proceeds from step S2 to step S11, where the number of retries N is returned to the initial value Nf. Similarly, various modifications are possible. For example, instead of immediately returning to the initial value Nf, one by one within a range not exceeding Nf, or
For example, it may be performed by multiplying by a coefficient such as 1.1. Also, instead of returning to the initial value Nf immediately after writing correctly, the number of correct writing is counted, and when the count value exceeds a preset value, N is increased or the initial value Nf is increased. It may be returned. In addition, the count value at this time may be the number of times that correct writing can be performed continuously, or may be the number of times that correct writing can be finally performed even if the number is not continuous.

Further, the processing in step S11 does not necessarily have to be performed. In this case, the number of retries N during the replacement process is gradually reduced in accordance with the number of the replacement processes. However, the lost retry number does not return to the initial value, and the replacement process permitted when accessing the recording medium. There is an effect that an upper limit value can be set for the number of times.

Although the above embodiment has been described using a write-once recording medium, a non-write-once recording medium can be applied to a recording method that can be applied to a recording method for performing a retry at the time of replacement processing. If it is, it can be used for the information recording method of the present invention. In FIG. 3, the replacement recording area 2
Although an example has been described where 4 is reserved as a fixed area, for example, a part of the information recording area 23 may be dynamically allocated and used as a replacement recording area. Further, in the operation flow of FIG. 1, the order of step S9 and step S10 can be reversed.

[0037]

According to the present invention, even if information is written while the recording medium is dirty, the information recording process can be interrupted before all the replacement recording areas are used up. A method can be provided.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a view showing an operation flow of an information recording method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an operation flow of a conventional information recording method.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a recording area for explaining how information is recorded on a recording medium.

[Explanation of symbols]

 S1 Step of writing information in the information recording area S3 to S9 Replacement processing step S10 Step of reducing the number of retries by a predetermined value S11 Step of increasing or decreasing the number of retries to a predetermined value

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code FI G11B 20/18 570 G11B 20/18 570D

Claims (3)

[Claims] A step of writing information to a predetermined information recording area; and a step of writing information to the replacement recording area provided separately from the information recording area when the information cannot be written to the information recording area. A replacement processing step of performing information writing processing; and, in this replacement processing step, a step of defining the number of retries that can perform the information writing processing; and the information is stored in the replacement recording area within the number of retries. Reducing the number of retries by a predetermined value when written. 2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of increasing or decreasing the number of retries to a predetermined value when information can be written to the information recording area without performing the replacement processing step. Information recording method. 3. The information recording method according to claim 1, wherein the number of retries is set to a value at which the alternation processing step is completed before all the alternation recording areas are used up.