Patent ID: 7589926

Claim:
A method for formatting a rotating memory medium for use in a hard disk drive comprising: defining concentric tracks on the medium, each track having a succession of servo areas for recording tracking information, the servo areas of adjacent tracks being located to form a plurality of spaced radial servo wedges, each track also having spaces between successive servo areas for recording data, at least the starting locations of each servo area and each space for storing data being stored in memory; scanning the tracks of the medium for defects and storing at least the starting location of each defect in memory; and recording tracking information in the servo areas, wherein reading and writing operations in the spaces for storing data can be controlled at least in part by recognizing the beginning locations of the servo areas; and data is divided into data sectors when recorded in the spaces for storing data, each data sector having no more than a predetermined number of bytes occupying a predetermined length along one of the tracks, whereby data sectors can be split across servo areas if the unused space preceding a selected servo area is smaller than the data sector length, the remaining data in the data sector being recorded in the space following the selected servo area; the defects being processed in the same manner as servo areas, so that the user data area in which a particular defect is located can be available for reading and writing before the location of the defect, and after a predetermined distance following the defect.