Patent ID: 6868477

Claim:
A disc drive having a data storage disc, an actuator for positioning a transducer over the data storage disc and a disc controller for communicating with a host computer, controlling position of the actuator and controlling access to data sectors in tracks on the data storage disc, the disc drive comprising: an interface; a read/write channel between the interface and the transducer; a formatter between the interface and the read/write channel for timing when data is transferred between the interface and the read/write channel; a skip mask mechanism between a target calculator and the formatter providing a masked input to the formatter for controlling passage of data between the interface and the read/write channel; a sorted-queue defining a temporary memory storage location for a list of commands received from the host computer that are to be analyzed by the disc drive and sorted according to which command is optimal to be next executed; and a ready-queue defining a temporary memory storage location for a list of commands received from the sorted-queue that are ready to be executed by the disc drive in a specific order.