Patent ID: 6332182
Filing Date: 2001-12-18
Classification: G11B

Abstract:
A disk drive controller for controlling the reading and writing of data to a magnetic disk without using ID fields within sectors of the magnetic disk, the disk drive controller comprising:a processor for controlling the reading and writing of data to the magnetic disk;a memory for holding in memory information pertaining to the control of the reading and writing of data to the magnetic disk;a memory controller coupled to the memory and the processor, the memory controller for controlling writing and reading of memory information in the memory; anda formatter controller coupled to the memory controller and the processor, the formatter controller for electrically coupling to the magnetic disk to read and write data thereto and the control thereof, the formatter controller including,a linked list of a plurality of parameter lists for storage in the memory, each parameter list corresponding to each sector of the magnetic disk, each parameter list including sector status flags for a track indicating the last sector in the track before an index servo burst on the magnetic disk, a last sector in the track that contains fewer sectors than expected because of defective sectors in the track and a current sector in the track is defective or relocated, and each parameter list including a first split count indicating the size of the first split of a data field in a sector to process the data field in the sector without an ID field stored within the sector indicating its location on the magnetic disk in order to read and write data between the magnetic disk and the disk drive controller.