Patent ID: 7227710

Claim:
A method for locating a timing mark (TM) on a rotating disk of a disk drive, the disk having a plurality of tracks, each track having a plurality of timing sections containing a preamble represented as a preamble pattern of at least n bits, and a TM following the preamble, the method comprising: representing said TM as a TM pattern of n bits, wherein said TM pattern has a pre-shift sliding distance d 1 to the concatenation of said preamble pattern with said TM pattern, and has a post-shift sliding distance (d 2 ; m) to said TM pattern, said TM pattern being referred to as a (n, d 1 , d 2 , m) pattern, wherein said TM pattern satisfies an optimality condition selected from the group consisting of: m is maximal given n, d 1 , and d 2 ; d 1 is maximal given n, d 2 , and m; d 2 is maximal given n, d 1 , and m; and n is minimal given d 1 , d 2 , and m; reading a bit stream from said track; and searching for said TM bit pattern within an TM search window which nominally extends m bits past the last bit of the TM on the disk and at least n bits before the first bit of the TM on the disk.