METHOD OF STORING DATA ON RECORDING TAPE

摘要

A method is disclosed for effecting update-in-place of data that has been recorded on tape in oblique tracks using a helical-scan recording technique. The data to be updated is recorded in a block (32) of M tracks lying between first and second continuum (81,37) each at least of N tracks where N is the worst-case number of tracks required to achieve head/track alignment. The block (82) of M tracks comprises a first series (100) of at least N tracks, a second series (101) of tracks containing the data, and a third series (12) of at least P tracks. When updating the data, the block (82) is rewritten as a whole in a single continuum with the first track of the block being written within a distance of P tracks from the last track of the first continuum (81).