Patent ID: 7042666

Claim:
A disk drive comprising: a) a rotatable disk having a plurality of tracks, each track having a plurality of timing sections comprising: i) a preamble represented as a preamble pattern of at least n bits; and ii) a timing mark (TM) following said preamble, said TM being represented 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; b) a read/write head for reading information from said disk and/or writing information to said disk; and c) a TM decoder, responsive to information read from said disk by said head, for detecting the TM patterns in said read information to thereby signal the presence of the timing sections, wherein said TM decoder searches for said TM patterns within a TM search window which nominally extends m bits past the last bit of the on the disk and at least n bits before the first bit of the TM on the disk.