SPARE AND CALIBRATION SECTOR MANAGEMENT FOR OPTICAL WORM MEDIA

摘要

The present invention provides efficient management of calibration and spare sectors on a banded optical write-once, read-many (WORM) disk. A portion of each band on the disk includes a user data area and a reserved area. Sectors in the reserved area are usable either as spare sectors, replacing defective sectors in the user area, or as calibration sectors, for use when the laser write-power level is calibrated. Sectors preferably are used for sparing from one end of the reserved area while sectors are used for calibration from the opposite end. A common overflow reserved area can also be provided for use if all of the sectors in one or more primary reserved areas associated with any of the bands have been exhausted.