Abstract: A reassign process is provided in a disk drive system including a plurality of tracks for storing data, each of the tracks being divided into a plurality of sectors, each sector having a corresponding logical address value associated therewith. Each track has a corresponding skew associated therewith and having a nominal skew value providing adequate time for sequential access of the corresponding track from a sequentially preceding track. The reassign process is operative to reassign data sectors stored in a reassign span including a first partial track having a reassign sector, a second partial track having a spare sector corresponding with the reassign sector, and at least one intermediate track disposed between the first and second partial tracks.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for determining a transducer position in relation to a media surface is described. The method comprises sensing positioning information on the media, measuring a position error signal from the sensed positioning information wherein the position error signal includes first and second position signal components, accessing stored information describing a non-linear relationship between the measured position error signal and the transducer position, and applying the stored relationship to the measured position error signal to produce a corrected position error signal, and determining the transducer position from the corrected position error signal.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and an article of manufacture for calibrating a position error signal for controlling the position of a read transducer with respect to a storage media having positioning information written at a location thereon. In one embodiment, the invention is embodied in a method comprising determining a relationship between a read transducer position and the positioning information by measuring the positioning information while passing the read transducer across the location, determining a measured position error signal from the measured positioning information, and computing a relationship between the measured position error signal and the read transducer position.

Abstract: A data recording disk drive includes a system and method for mapping around skip sectors, both bad sectors and spare sectors. A received logical block address is converted to a corresponding physical block address by mapping through a set of tables. A first table includes entries for virtual tracks which group together LBAs having shared high order bits. A second table contains entries for the skip sectors. The high order bits of a given LBA are used to select an entry in the first table, which entry is an index into the second table. Starting from the index point, the second table is searched, using the low order bits of the LBA, for a skip sector beyond the LBA value. Once the appropriate skip sector is found, the index of this skip sector within the second table is added to the LBA to compute the PBA. The PBA is then mapped to a zone, cylinder, head, sector location on the disk drive.