Vincent B Rapp

US Patent:

20010010085, Jul 26, 2001

Filed:

Mar 1, 2001

Appl. No.:

09/798864

Inventors:

Benedict Rafanello - Round Rock TX, US
Vincent Rapp - Austin TX, US
Barry Russell - Austin TX, US

Assignee:

International Business Machines Corp. - Armonk NY

International Classification:

H04L001/22
G11C029/00

US Classification:

714/710000, 714/010000

Abstract:

Where a number n of read attempts are required to successfully read a data sector, with the first n-1 attempts returning a disk drive read error, the number of attempts required is compared to a predefined threshold selected to indicate that the sector is unreliable and is in danger of becoming completely unrecoverable. If the threshold number of attempts is not exceeded, the sector is presumed to still be good and no further action need be taken. If the threshold number of attempts was equaled or exceeded, however, the unreliable or failing sector is relocated to a reserved replacement sector, with the recovered data written to the replacement sector. The failing data sector is remapped to the replacement sector, which becomes a fully functional substitute for the failing sector for future reads and writes while preserving the original user data. Data within a failing sector is thus preserved before the sector becomes completely unrecoverable.