JPS60247728A - Disk control system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce readout errors without returning a device to the factory by receiving a formatting operation instruction from a host device, and performing format conversion by using medium defective information stored in a memory and formatting the device. CONSTITUTION:A ROMII8 is already stored with medium defective information on a magnetic disk device 11. When a medium is formatted differently from the format of the device 11, the formatting operation instruction is received from the HOST12, the medium defective information stored in the ROMII8 is used to perform conversion to defective sectors in new format different from the format at the time of factory shipment, and the device 11 is formatted in the new format according to the converted defective sectors. Thus, when the format different from the format at the time of factory shipment is used, readout errors are reduced without returning the device 11 to the factory.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a disk control system, and more particularly to a disk control system that processes information regarding medium defects on the recording surface of a recording disk.

Prior Art In general, disk devices such as magnetic disk devices and optical disk devices are made by stacking one or more disks (recording media) on which a thin film of magnetic or photosensitive material is formed on the surface of a circular substrate and rotating the disks. It has a configuration in which information is written and read by a write/read head such as a magnetic head or an optical head that can freely reciprocate toward the center of the recording medium.

Therefore, disk devices are widely used in various information processing devices because they can be obtained at relatively low cost as storage devices with large capacity and short access time (selective operation time for writing and reading). With advances in film surface formation technology and in the design and production of write/read heads, the recording density is increasing year by year. Since it is not necessarily economical to eliminate all defects on the storage surface of the storage medium used in such disk devices from the viewpoint of the formation process of the storage film surface, the storage medium is allowed to have a certain number of defects or less. It is common to use

Therefore, when a conventional disk device is shipped from a factory, a medium incorporated in the device is inspected for defects, and information regarding the defect (defect information) is recorded on the medium by a specific record formation. This process is called error test formatting (abbreviated as ETF). When using a disk device, information about the defect is read out, the location of the defect is known, and the information is written while avoiding the defective part. A method of doing this is used.

However, when the user rewrites the data into a format different from the one recorded in the disk device at the time of shipment from the factory (hereinafter referred to as the format), the defect information already recorded is automatically erased. Therefore, in the above-mentioned case, the disk device has to be returned to the factory and rewritten to a different format by performing the ETF again. Alternatively, if the existing defects are completely ignored and a different format is used, problems such as read errors may occur.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to eliminate the above-mentioned conventional drawbacks, and its purpose is to create a format different from the factory-shipped formant based on medium defect information previously stored in a read-only memory. It is an object of the present invention to provide a disk control method that can improve reliability by converting the disk drive into a format that eliminates the need to return the disk device to the factory and prevents read errors from occurring.

Composition of the Invention The disk control method according to the present invention has a memory that stores information related to medium defects of all recording tracks from the first track to the last track of the medium of a disk device, and can be formatted in a format different from that of the disk device. When matting is performed, the configuration is such that a format operation command is received from a host device, format conversion is performed using medium defect related information stored in a memory, and the disk device is formatted.

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

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an example of a magnetic disk control device to which the present invention is applied. In the figure, an interface control circuit 9 exchanges data signals and control signals with a host device (HO8T) 12, and transmits these signals with each circuit in the magnetic disk control device described below. .

The control processing circuit (hereinafter abbreviated as control CPU) 2 includes:
This circuit controls the operation of the magnetic disk controller (DKC) 10 according to the operation procedure stored in the first read-only memory (hereinafter referred to as ROM) 6.
6. Random access memory (hereinafter abbreviated as RAM)
7. Second read-only memory (hereinafter abbreviated as ROM)
8, a write/read control circuit (hereinafter referred to as the R seat control circuit) 4 and an error correction circuit (hereinafter referred to as the FCC circuit) 5, and the address bus line 22
(6, connected to RAM7 and ROM[8, respectively.

The R/W control circuit 4 is connected to a magnetic disk device (hereinafter referred to as D
(abbreviated as KU) 11 controls write and read operations. If there is an error in the data read from the DKUll, the ECC circuit 5 detects the error and generates information for correcting the error, and the data corrected according to the information is stored in the RAM 7. The RAM 7 temporarily stores data and control signals sent from the HO3T 12 via the interface circuit 9 or data corrected by correction information generated in the ECC circuit 5. ROM [
Reference numeral 8 denotes a circuit in which defect information of the DKUII is stored in a staggered manner, and is read out when used in a different format. ROM (6 is a circuit for storing each operating procedure of the main control device; the address is specified by the control CPU 2 by the address bus 22, and the data bus 2
1.

The memory access control circuit (hereinafter referred to as DMA controller) 3 is a control circuit for specifying the address of the RAM 7 in accordance with the read speed of the DKUII when storing read data from the ECC circuit 5 in the RAM 7. The DMA controller 3 also operates in place of the control CPU 2 when data in the RAM 7 is written to the DK Ull via the FCC circuit 5.

FIG. 2 explains an example of format conversion including medium defects when using a format different from the factory-shipped format.

In the figure, M is an index mark indicating the start and end points of a track, and IM indicates a media defect. It exists at the 71A byte position. If the storage capacity from one IM to the next IM is 11 bytes, and the factory default format is n-sector division, the sector corresponding to the media defect in Figure 2 is t2//(tI/+1). This can be easily determined by performing calculations, and when ETF is performed, it is stored that the sector corresponding to the medium defect is a defective sector. However, if you use a format different from the factory default format (for example, m-sector division), t2/(
71,/m), defective sectors corresponding to medium defects can be easily identified even in different formats.

In addition to the number of bytes from the IM to the medium defect shown in FIG. 2, the 7 cylinders in which the medium defect exists, the head number, etc. are stored in advance in the ROM [8.

Next, DKCIQ and DKUll with the above configuration
The operation of the magnetic disk control device of the present invention will be explained with reference to the flowchart of FIG. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an example of the operation of converting into a format different from the factory-shipped format according to the present invention. As mentioned above, the ROM 118 contains the DKUI
The medium defect information for I has already been stored. Now HO8T1
Receives the "5PECIFY" command from 2 (reference number a).

The "5PECIFY" command is defined as a command that instructs the magnetic disk control device about the maximum number of cylinders, maximum number of heads, maximum number of sectors, etc. of the DKUII. This °'5
By comparing the maximum number of sectors specified by the ``PECIFY'' command with the maximum number of sectors formatted at the factory (reference number b), if the format does not differ from the factory shipment, the next process is executed ( Reference number C).

If the format differs from the factory default, please
8T12 receives the "EORMAT DRIVE" command (reference number d). “FORMA TDRI
VE" command is defined as a command that instructs to write DKUII in a specified format. Next, according to the defect information read from ROMI [8], the defect sector is written in a new format different from the factory format. Convert reference number e) and format the DKUll to a new format according to the converted defective sectors (reference number f).

By performing the above operations, it is possible to convert the media defect information at the time of factory shipment to the new format without any loss. The above description is for the case where the present invention is applied to a magnetic disk control device and a magnetic disk device, but it is clear from the above description that the present invention can be applied in exactly the same way to an optical disk control device and an optical disk device. It is. Furthermore, this embodiment takes as an example the case of fixed length sector division. However, it can also be applied to variable length sectors.

As described in detail, according to the present invention, when a format different from the factory-shipped format is used, medium defect information is not damaged in any way, resulting in a significant reduction in read errors. This also eliminates the need to return the disk device to the factory.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of calculation and format conversion of a defective sector corresponding to a medium defect in a fixed sector recording format, and FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the blocks in the figure. Explanation of symbols of main parts 2... Control CPU 3... DMA controller 4
...Write/read side, control circuit 5...FCC circuit 6.8...ROM7...RAM
11...Disk device 12...Upper device Applicant NEC Corporation Agent Patent attorney Shin Yanagawa Figure 1

Claims (1)

[Claims] It has a memory means storing medium defect related information of all recording tracks of the recording medium of the disk device, and when formatting with a format different from the format of the disk device, the memory means receives a formatting operation command from a host device. A disk control method characterized in that the medium defect information stored in the means is used to convert the format and format the disk device.