Patent ID: 7005820

Claim:
A disk drive comprising: a rotatable disk; an actuator that supports a transducer; a voice control motor (VCM) including a coil winding configured to receive a signal to move the actuator so that the transducer is moved relative to the disk; a spindle motor having a plurality of windings and a rotor rotatable at an operating spin-rate during an operation mode of the disk drive; a spindle motor driver connected to apply winding currents across a combination of the spindle motor windings, and to receive a speed signal to enable measurement of spindle motor speed; and a processor coupled to the VCM to apply a signal to measure a resistance of the VCM coil winding and provide a temperature estimate based on the measured resistance, the processor further coupled to receive the speed signal enabling measurement of the spindle motor speed, the processor providing a signal to the spindle motor driver to turn off the spindle motor if the spindle motor speed has not reached the operating spin-rate after a period of time, wherein the period of time is increased with a decrease in the temperature estimate provided from the processor; and a spindle motor controller coupling the processor to the spindle motor driver, wherein the spindle motor driver applies the winding currents to generate torque on the rotor to cause movement of the spindle motor, and wherein the spindle motor controller provides a signal to control a magnitude of the winding currents applied to increase the torque during startup corresponding to the decrease in the temperature estimate provided from the processor.