Fast formatting of media in an optical library

摘要

Fast formatting of DASD emulating sectors on optical media is provided to reduce initialization time. Rather than format each track media when a new surface of an optical media is mounted in an optical storage library, a table is created on the media containing a set of entries for each track on the media surface. During initialization, a first table entry for each track is set to indicate that the state of the track is reliably KNOWN and a second entry is set to indicate that the track is virgin (unrecorded). Prior to a subsequent data access operation, the track table is copied from the media into a corresponding table in memory and each first entry in the media table is changed to indicate an UNKNOWN state. The memory track table is updated during the data access operations to reflect newly recorded or updated sectors. Upon completion of the data access, the media table is overwritten with the updated memory table.