Patent ID: 6940682

Claim:
A servo system for a magnetic tape drive, said servo system for positioning a tape head laterally with respect to a plurality of parallel, longitudinal servo bands of a magnetic tape, said tape head having a plurality of data read transducers, said magnetic tape drive having a data flow system for reading data sensed by said plurality of data read transducers, said servo system comprising: at least one servo head positioned on said tape head; at least one servo read channel for detecting servo signals of said servo bands of said magnetic tape; a servo actuator for positioning said tape head laterally with respect to said magnetic tape; an agent for selectively directing signals sensed by said data read transducers of said tape head to said at least one servo read channel; and a control system: responding to said detected servo signals of said servo bands from said at least one servo read channel for operating said servo actuator to position said tape head laterally with respect to said servo bands; responding to loss of information about the lateral position of said tape head, operating said agent to selectively direct signals sensed by said data read transducers to said at least one servo read channel; and upon said at least one servo read channel detecting a servo signal representing one of said servo bands from a sensed said data read transducer, determining the lateral position of said tape head with respect to said detected servo band based upon the position of said data read transducer that sensed said detected servo signal.