Patent ID: 6456451
Filing Date: 2002-09-24
Classification: G11B

Abstract:
A disk drive apparatus, comprising:a disk-shaped recording medium provided with a plurality of concentric tracks on which a servo pattern is recorded for the purpose of tracking control; a head actuator module having a read head element and a write head element, said head actuator module moves said read head element and said write head element in a transverse direction across the tracks, said head actuator module separately positions said read head element and said write head element in the radial direction of the tracks, with an offset which varies with a skew angle of the head actuator module; a position detection module which detects a position of the read head element from a readout signal of the servo pattern read by the read head element, and outputs a position detection signal; a servo control module which controls the head actuator module based upon said position detection signal; an offset detection module which detects the offset between the read and write head elements in the radial direction of the track according to the skew angle, and outputs an offset detection signal; a write head element position compensation module which based on the offset detection signal, controls the servo control module so as to position the write head element at a predetermined position along the radial direction of a first predetermined track during write operations; and a read head element position compensation module which compensates the control of the servo control module so that, during read operations, the read head element is positioned at a predetermined location in a second predetermined track depending upon the detected output from the offset detection module and wherein the read head element position compensation module is adapted for controlling the read head element so that the read head element is positioned during read operations between the positions of the write head element and the read head element during write operations.