Patent ID: 7808737

Claim:
A magnetic disk drive comprising: a magnetic recording medium on which information is written to each track thereof, the recording medium having a servo signal formed in the each track at specified intervals; a magnetic head including a read head for reading a signal from the magnetic recording medium, and a write head for writing information to the magnetic recording medium; a control unit for, when the magnetic head writes/reads information, detecting a servo signal from among signals read out by the read head, and for continuously acquiring information about intervals of the detection, and then for, on the basis of the information about the servo-signal detection intervals that has been continuously acquired, executing specified processing relating to at least one of writing and reading; an expected value storing section for storing an expected value of predetermined intervals of the servo signal, the expected value updated based upon the servo signal; wherein if a difference between the expected value of the detection intervals stored in the expected value storing section and the detection intervals indicated by the information which has been continuously acquired does not exceed a specified allowable threshold value, said controller calculates a corrected expected value by subjecting the expected value to correction, and then the information about the corrected expected value is used for specified processing relating to at least one of writing and reading, whereas if the difference between the expected value of the detection intervals stored in the expected value storing part and the detection intervals indicated by the information which has been continuously acquired exceeds the specified threshold value, said controller stops the specified processing relating to at least one of writing and reading; wherein the control unit further comprises a comparison controller, a servo-interval expected value setting register, a servo-interval correction value setting register, a fluctuation allowable value setting register, and a difference computing element, the difference computing element configured to output a difference value based on a third value stored in a servo interval counter and a fourth value stored in the servo-interval correction value setting register; the comparison controller configured to receive as inputs, the servo signal, the difference value, a first value stored in the servo interval expected value setting register, and a second value stored in the fluctuation allowable value setting register, the comparison controller further configured to generate as output a status signal based on the servo signal and a relative servo interval expected value; wherein the relative servo interval expected value is based on the first value, the second value and the difference value; wherein the relative servo interval expected value is fed back to the servo-interval correction value setting register to update the fourth value.