Patent Application
20060184830
This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-024577, filed Jan. 31, 2005, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field
The present invention relates to a disk device and disk processing method for reproducing an information recording medium having a defect management area which stores defect management area (DMA) information and more particularly to a disk device and disk processing method which if part of the defect management information is destroyed, automatically repairs this defect management information regardless of a host controller.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information memory medium such as an optical disk includes a user area for storing user data, which repairs defect generated in this user area. Such a procedure is called alternation processing. Area for managing information relating to the alternation processing, namely, defect management information is called defect management area (DMA).
Although of the information recording mediums, the DVD-RAM can be overwritten more than 100,000 times, a disk having a low recording resistance like HD DVD-RW has a plurality of the DMAs so as to possess a function for moving the DMA itself.
According to the patent document 1 (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 7-29177), DMA manager is not written into the DMA immediately but first written into a first DMA area and after that, when the DMA information is read and determined to be normal, that DMA information is written into remaining second to fourth DMAs so as to raise the reliability of the DMA information.
However, according to the conventional technology of the patent document 1, when new DMA information is recorded, write reliability is raised by confirming the information each time it is written into each area of a plurality of the areas. However, if part of the defect management information (hereinafter referred to as DMA) is lost due to damage, stain or the like in the recording area of the disk, this DMA is never automatically repaired. Therefore, there is such a problem that the reliability of the DMA cannot be maintained for a long term.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a disk device comprising: a reading portion which reads out from a disk having a rewritable area, a plurality of defect management areas and a plurality of position information areas indicating an optimum position used for reproduction in the plurality of the defect management areas; a recording portion which records information in the rewritable area or the defect management area; a reproducing portion which reproduces information read out by the reading portion and stored in the rewritable area based on given defect management information; and a control portion which reads out a plurality of defect management information based on the plurality of the position information stored in the position information area and controls the reading portion and the recording portion so as to repair defect management information which fails to be read out corresponding to defect management information which is read out successfully.
Hereinafter embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
An information recording/reproducing apparatus of an embodiment of the present invention carries out alternation processing to a recording medium (optical disk) based on defect management information. Thus, this apparatus reads a plurality of pieces of defect management area information (hereinafter referred to as DMA) appropriately and if it finds out a DMA which cannot be read out partially, it automatically repairs this defect.
<Example of Information Recording/Reproducing Apparatus of the Present Invention>
(Structure)
First, an example of the structure of the information recording/reproducing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
As shown in
The main control portion 20 controls a drive portion for recording processing control, reproduction processing control and DMA processing and includes a DMA repairing portion which is an embodiment of the present invention. Here, the drive portion includes the modulation circuit 2, the laser control circuit 3, the laser 4, the collimator lens 5, the polarized beam splitter (hereinafter referred to as PBS) 6, the ¼ wavelength plate 7, the objective lens 8, the condenser lens 9, the light detector 10, the signal processing circuit 11, the demodulation circuit 12, the focus error signal generating circuit 13, the tracking error signal generating circuit 14, the focus control circuit 16, and the tracking control circuit 17.
(Operation)
Here, the processing operation of the information recording/reproducing apparatus T according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described. First, the recording processing of this information recording/reproducing apparatus T will be described. The recording processing of data is controlled by the main control portion 20. Recording data (data symbol) is modulated to a predetermined channel bit series by the modulation circuit 2. The channel bit series corresponding to the recording data is converted to laser driving wavelength by the laser control circuit 3. The laser control circuit 3 pulse-drives the laser 4 so as to record data corresponding to a predetermined bit series on the medium 1. Light beam for recording projected from the laser 4 are turned to parallel light by the collimator lens 5 and enters and passes through the PBS 6. The beam passing through the PBS 6 passes through the ¼ wavelength plate 7 and is focused on an information recording plane of the medium 1 by the objective lens 8. The focused beam is maintained in a state in which an optimum fine spot is obtained on the recording plane by focus control by the focus control circuit 16 and tracking control by the tracking control circuit 17.
Subsequently, data reproduction processing of this information recording/reproducing apparatus will be described. Reproduction of data is controlled by the main control portion 20. The laser 4 projects light beam for reproduction based on data reproduction instruction from the main control portion 20. The reproduction light beam irradiated from the laser 4 is turned to parallel light by the collimator lens 5 and enters and passes through the PBS 6. The light beam passing through the PBS 6 passes through the ¼ wavelength plate 7 and is focused on the information recording plane by the objective lens 8. The focused beam is maintained in a state in which an optimum fine spot is obtained on the recording plane by focus control by the focus control circuit 16 and tracking control by the tracking control circuit 17. At this time, the light beam for reproduction projected to the medium 1 is reflected by a reflecting film or a reflective recording film in the information recording plane. The reflected light passes through the objective lens 8 in an opposite direction and turns to parallel light again. The reflected light passes through the ¼ wavelength plate 7 so that it is provided with polarization of light perpendicular to incident light and reflected by the PBS 6. The beam reflected by the PBS 6 turns to converged light by the condenser lens 9, entering the light detector 10. The light detector 10 is constituted of, for example, a 4-division photo detector. Light beam entering the light detector 10 is converted photoelectrically to electric signal, which is amplified. The amplified signal is equalized by the signal processing circuit 11 to binary signal, which is sent to the demodulation circuit 12. The binary signal is subjected to demodulation corresponding to the predetermined modulation system by the demodulation circuit 12 and then reproduction data is outputted.
Further, a focus error signal is generated by the focus error signal generating circuit 13 based on part of the electric signals outputted from the light detector 10. Likewise, a tracking error signal is generated by the tracking error signal generating circuit 14 based on part of the electric signals outputted from the light detector 10. The focus control circuit 16 controls focus of beam spot based on the focus error signal. The tracking control circuit 17 controls the tracking of the beam spot based on the tracking error signal.
Here, the alternation processing, which is DMA processing by the main control portion 20, will be described briefly. Certification is carried out when a medium is formatted. At this time, the main control portion 20 detects a defect on the medium. A defect detected at this time, namely, defect management information relating to initial defect is recorded in PDL in the DMA of the medium by the main control portion 20. The defect management information includes an address of an alternation object sector and an address of an alternation destination sector. At normal recording time, the main control portion 20 detects a defect on the medium. A defect detected at this time, namely, defect management information relating to secondary defect is recorded in SDL in the DMA of the medium by the main control portion 20. The defect management information includes an address of a head sector of an alternation object ECC block and an address of a head sector of an alternation destination ECC block. An access to the alternation object is regarded as an access to the alternation destination based on PDL and SDL.
(DMA Manager on Recording Medium and DMA)
An example of the recording medium 1 handled by the information recording/reproducing apparatus T according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a lead-in area A1 on its innermost periphery and a lead-out area A3 on its outermost periphery. The medium 1 has a data area A2 between the lead-in area A1 and the lead-out area A3. The data area A2 has a user area UA and a spare area SA.
As shown in
By disposing the DMA series on the innermost and outermost peripheries, a plurality of the DMA series are disposed physically apart from each other. As a result, the DMA becomes highly resistant to any defect.
<DMA Repair Processing Method of information Recording/Reproducing Apparatus of the Present Invention>
Next, the DMA repair processing method according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail using a flow chart.
In the information recording/reproducing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, the DMA repair processing is automatically carried out without any user's operation (or may be carried out corresponding to user's forced operation), and for example, is carried out at a variety of timings shown in FIGS. 5 to 8.
That is, according to the flow chart shown in
According to the flow chart shown in
According to the flow chart of
According to the flow chart of
DMA Repair Processing
The DMA repair processing will be described in detail using the flow chart shown in
If at least one of such read out DMAs can be read (S47), the read DMA is stored in a memory area or the like (S49). If any DMA which cannot be read out exists (S50), the DMA which cannot be read out is repaired to a correct DMA by writing into the area of the DMA which cannot be read out based on the information of the read out DMA (S51). Here, the DMA at a repaired portion is read out again and if there is no problem in the read out content, the procedure is ended (S52) (when no DMA can be read out in step S47, there is no problem if there exists no DMA because the disk is new, but if every DMA in the disk is abnormal, for example, this recording processing is preferably canceled even if recording processing is instructed at this stage.)
On the other hand, if the read out content is not repaired completely, transition processing is carried out and that is, after the DMA is recorded by changing a write position, its position information is recorded into the DMA manager and then, the DMA repair processing is ended (S53). If any DMA can be read out in step S47 or there exists no DMA which cannot be read out in step S50, the procedure is ended without any DMA repair processing.
As a consequence, there is provided a disk device and disk processing method in which the DMA repair processing is executed in each operation indicated in FIGS. 5 to 8 and even if any DMA block incapable of being reproduced due to drop in recording quality exists, the frequency of DMA transitions can be suppressed by automatically rewriting the DMA, so that improvements in recording life and reliability can be expected.
Alternation Processing
For reference, the alternation processing executed by a DMA whose reliability is improved as described above will be described briefly using a flow chart of
As described above, in the above-described disk device, if part of the DMA cannot be read out due to damage, stain or the like of the disk, other DMA which is read out successfully is automatically recorded in a DMA area which fails to be read out without receiving any command form the host controller so as to carry out the repair processing. As a result, the alternation processing using the DMA can be carried out securely and thus, highly reliable reproduction processing can be carried out. Further, even if a plurality of the DMA blocks incapable of being reproduced due to drop in recording quality exist, the frequency of DMA transitions can be suppressed by repeating such automatic repair processing to rewrite the DMA, thereby improving the recording service life and reliability.
After the DMA is repaired, reading test of the DMA is carried out after repair and if reading fails again here, preferably, the procedure proceeds to transition processing or the like for moving the DMA area.
Those skilled in art can carry out the present invention according to a variety of embodiments and further, those skilled in art can imagine a variety of modifications of these embodiments easily and can apply them to a variety of embodiments without any inventive power. Therefore the present invention extends within a wide range not inconsistent with the disclosed principle and novel features and is not restricted to the above-described embodiments.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005-024577 | Jan 2005 | JP | national |
