Importance

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Abstract

A data recording disk drive includes a system and method for mapping around skip sectors, both bad sectors and spare sectors. A received logical block address is converted to a corresponding physical block address by mapping through a set of tables. A first table includes entries for virtual tracks which group together LBAs having shared high order bits. A second table contains entries for the skip sectors. The high order bits of a given LBA are used to select an entry in the first table, which entry is an index into the second table. Starting from the index point, the second table is searched, using the low order bits of the LBA, for a skip sector beyond the LBA value. Once the appropriate skip sector is found, the index of this skip sector within the second table is added to the LBA to compute the PBA. The PBA is then mapped to a zone, cylinder, head, sector location on the disk drive. The mapping system reduces the total storage required to convert LBAs to ZCHS values and improves the performance of the conversion process. Additional features include a third table for distinguishing bad sectors from spare sectors, schema for re-mapping spare sectors to substitute for data sectors which fail during use, and overlap between the LBA high order and low order bits to further improve performance.

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First Claim