Disc drive translation and defect management apparatus and method

摘要

A disc drive translation and defect management method and apparatus. The method and apparatus includes an index table to translate a host computer's logical cylinder request into an arbitrarily designated physical cylinder location in the disc drive system. Once the physical cylinder is located, the physical head and sector location is determined with a quick, relatively simple mathematical translation. If a defect is present on the indexed physical cylinder in question, the index table provides a defect flag and a pointer which points into a predetermined entry of a defect table. The selected entry in the defect table provides a defect offset value for the physical location in question. The offset value is added to the physical cylinder, head and sector location to push it into a defect-free physical location.