151 results about "Disk sector" patented technology

A disk drive detects whether a disk inserted therein has a frame-based enhanced formatting. Disks having the frame-based enhanced formatting are readable by enhanced drives, e.g., those with the tape drive emulators. The frame-based enhanced formatting imposes on the data (1) an data organization, imperceptible to disk drive 22, for rendering the data expressible and locatable in a tape drive format, and (2) an additional degree of error correction that provides enhanced data integrity necessary for data backup / restore operations. The detection stems from a secondary formatting operation of the invention in which a format type identification is recorded on the disk. Preferably, the format type identification is recorded as one disk sector at a beginning logical block address of the disk, and forms part of a volume header frame. The volume header frame is followed by a directory comprising one or more directory frames.

A technique for read error failover processing in a mirrored disk system such as a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) system, where individual disk units perform Logical Block Address (LBA) remapping. A read error causes a disk controller to report an “unrecoverable” read error to a RAID controller. After receiving this report of an unrecoverable read error, rather than simply switching over to a mirror, the RAID controller first checks to see whether the disk that caused the error can successfully reassign an LBA. In particular, the RAID controller can retrieve the data that was associated with the failed LBA from the mirror, and then write that data to the offending disk. The disk controller for that disk will then perform its standard LBA remapping, and write the data to a new, good sector. Only if this process does not succeed is the offending disk then treated by the RAID controller as having failed sufficiently to require failover to the mirror.

A modern computer operating system is altered to boot and run from a protected medium such as a CD-ROM. Files and configuration information are copied from a fully configured and operational OS to a hard drive image file. File system filters and device drivers are added that implement an emulated read-write hard disk drive by servicing initial read requests from the image file, and write requests and read requests to previously written data, from a written disk sector database. The OS is altered to load the filters and drivers during boot, and to subsequently run from the emulated read-write hard disk drive. The hard drive image file is then placed on a bootable protected medium.

The invention is directed towards a system and method that utilizes external memory devices to cache sectors from a rotating storage device (e.g., a hard drive) to improve system performance. When an external memory device (EMD) is plugged into the computing device or onto a network in which the computing device is connected, the system recognizes the EMD and populates the EMD with disk sectors. The system routes I / O read requests directed to the disk sector to the EMD cache instead of the actual disk sector. The use of EMDs increases performance and productivity on the computing device systems for a fraction of the cost of adding memory to the computing device.

A headless computer entity has a license key data stored on a raw disk sector separate from a system disk and a data disk. The license key data control the available data storage capacity within the headless computer entity, and protect the computer entity from unauthorized upgrade to a higher product specification. The license key data are encrypted and protected from hacking via software updates introduced on an external data carrier, such as a CD ROM.

A technique for read error failover processing in a mirrored disk system such as a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) system, where individual disk units perform Logical Block Address (LBA) remapping. A read error causes a disk controller to report an “unrecoverable” read error to a RAID controller. After receiving this report of an unrecoverable read error, rather than simply switching over to a mirror, the RAID controller first checks to see whether the disk that caused the error can successfully reassign an LBA. In particular, the RAID controller can retrieve the data that was associated with the failed LBA from the mirror, and then write that data to the offending disk. Only if this process does not succeed is the offending disk then treated by the RAID controller as having failed sufficiently to require failover to the mirror.

A magnetic disk for a hard disk drive comprising a distributed track identifier is described. The disk includes a first portion of a track identifier physically located at a first location on a disk sector and a second portion of the track identifier physically located at a second location on the disk sector wherein the first portion and the second portion of the track identifier are discontinuous on the sector.

An integrated circuit implementing a storage-shelf router used alone, or in combination with other storage-shelf routers, and in combination with path controller cards, to interconnect the disks within a storage shelf or disk array to a high-bandwidth communications medium through which data is exchanged between the individual disk drives of the storage shelf and a disk-array controller. In various embodiments, the present invention provides virtual disk formatting by a storage shelf router and the storage shelf in which the storage-shelf is included, to external computing entities, such as disk-array controllers and host computers. By providing virtual disk formatting, a storage-shelf router can provide to a disk-array controller, and other external computing entities, the disk-formatting convention expected by the disk-array controller, even though disk drives and other storage systems that do not conform to the expected formatting conventions may be included in the storage shelf and interconnected to a disk-array controller and other external processing entities via an interface provided by a storage-shelf router. Virtual disk formatting, in addition, allows a storage-shelf router to format a disk drive differently from the disk formatting expected by external computing entities, so that the storage-shelf router can transparently include additional information into disk sectors, such as additional error detection and error-correction information.

In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for tracking modified files on a virtual machine including the steps of identifying an altered disk sector, associating the altered disk sector with code that is operated in a virtual machine, and causing a malicious code scan to be performed on the code.

A read-write hard disk drive is emulated using a hard disk drive image file on a protected medium such as a CD-ROM, a written disk sector database, and file system filters. A file system filter intercepts file I / O requests from the operating system. Initial read requests are serviced from the hard disk drive image file. Write operations are directed to a database, such as in RAM. Subsequent read requests for previously written data are serviced from the database. Another file system filter monitors attempts to alter the file access attributes, and prevents pre-existing read-only files on the emulated drive from being written or deleted. The maximum size of the written disk sector database is the sum of sectors on the hard disk drive image file allocated to read-write files and free space. The emulated read-write hard disk drive allows for the execution of programs requiring a read-write native media.

The invention provides a method for processing bad sectors of an RAID5 disk array. A 4KB bad block recording space is added to a super block of each RAID member disk to record the positions of the bad sectors in all the member disks when the RAID5 disk array is set up. When the RAID5 disk array is started, data of the recording space of bad blocks in each member disk are mapped to a memory, a bad block table is set up in the memory, and the corresponding operation is conducted according to the record of a disc sector in the memory bad block table when the write operation of the disk sector is executed and when errors occur in the process of executing the read operation of the disk sector. According to the method, when the bad sectors appear in the disks, the disks do not need to be removed, only the bad sectors need to be marked, the bad sectors do not need to be read or written, stability of the RAID5 disk array is greatly improved, the service life of the disk array is prolonged, the use ratio of stored resources is improved, and reliability of data is ensured.