Patent ID: 7027241

Claim:
A method for writing data to a disk drive, the disk drive having at least one disk and a head for writing data to each disk, and each disk having at least one data track, the method comprising steps of: positioning a head over a selected data track of a selected disk of the disk drive, the selected data track having a first predetermined number of physical sectors; writing a second predetermined number of data blocks of a data stream to corresponding physical sectors of the selected data track using a variable-index writing technique when the head encounters each physical sector and when the physical sector is not defective, a size of a data block equaling a size of a physical sector; skipping a physical sector of the selected data track when the physical sector is defective; skipping a third predetermined number of physical sectors of the selected data track when all data blocks of data stream have been written to the selected data track and writing at least one error correction information data block as a part of the second predetermined number of data blocks, the third predetermined number of skipped physical sectors of the selected data track equaling the first predetermined number of physical sectors minus a sum of the second predetermined number of data blocks plus the number of skipped defective physical sectors of the data track.