Patent ID: 6886176

Claim:
An optical disk drive comprising: a first base portion forming a body of said optical disk drive; a second base portion separate from said first base portion, said second base portion including: a turntable for rotatably supporting an optical disc; a first motor for rotating said turntable; an optical pickup for at least one of writing a data signal to the optical disc supported on said turntable and reading a data signal recorded on the optical disc; and a pickup drive mechanism for moving said optical pickup bidirectionally between an inside circumference of the optical disc and an outside circumference of the optical disc; a raising and lowering mechanism supporting said second base portion, and operable to raise and lower said second base portion; a disk loading mechanism for moving the optical disc bidirectionally along a disc insertion path between a first position, whereat the optical disc is positioned above said turntable, and a second position, whereat the optical disc is positioned outside the disk drive, said disk loading mechanism including: a loading drive mechanism for driving said disk loading mechanism; a second motor mounted to said second base portion, said second motor being operable to move in a forward rotation direction and a reverse rotation direction, and being operable to drive said pickup drive mechanism and drive said loading drive mechanism so as to thereby move said optical pickup bidirectionally via said pickup drive mechanism, to thereby move the optical disk bidirectionally via said disk loading mechanism, and to thereby raise and lower said second base portion by driving said raising and lowering mechanism via said loading drive mechanism, said second base portion and said disk loading mechanism being arranged so that a moving operation of said optical pickup, a raising and lowering operation of said turntable of said second base portion, and a moving operation of the optical disc can be substantially continuously performed in this sequence by driving said second motor continuously in the forward rotation direction, and so that the moving operation of said optical pickup, the raising and lowering operation, and the moving operation of said optical disc can be performed in a reverse direction and in reverse sequence substantially continuously by driving said second motor continuously in the reverse rotation direction; a drive power gear path between said first base portion and said second base portion, and including a gear set having a plurality of gears for supplying drive power from said second motor to said loading drive mechanism and said pickup drive mechanism; and a drive power path switching mechanism for switching a drive power supplied by said second motor between a path supplying power to said loading drive mechanism and a path supplying power to said pickup drive mechanism.