Error detection/correction and fault detection/recovery – Pulse or data error handling – Replacement of memory spare location – portion – or segment
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-05
2001-09-11
Chung, Phung M. (Department: 2133)
Error detection/correction and fault detection/recovery
Pulse or data error handling
Replacement of memory spare location, portion, or segment
C360S048000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06289475
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application claims the priority benefit of Taiwan application Ser. No. 88101440, filed Jan. 30, 1999, the full disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method of retrieving storage capacity of damaged or defect sectors by utilizing reserved capacity. More particularly, the invention relates to a special formatting program, which reformats the storage medium and employs the reserved capacity of the storage medium to replace the capacity occupied by the damaged sectors, so as to retrieve the capacity of the storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the information technology has been very well developed in the modern society, the application of computers involves versatile fields such as multi-medium, network, data storage, and information transmission. Computers are now basic equipment that almost all kinds of business or professions obligate. Moreover, it is now so common that almost every family owns a computer.
The storage medium used to store information data in a computer comprises a conventional disk, a compact disk (CD), or other media. A conventional floppy disk is to be described as follows.
In a conventional storage medium, a portion of sectors is not to be access under a normal operation. The storage capacity occupied by the portion of sectors is called a reserved capacity of the storage medium. Taking a high density floppy disk as an example, the usable storage capacity is supposed to be 1.44 Mbytes/disk. However, according to a test result under the DOS/Windows environment, at least a usable capacity of about 320 Kbyte is reserved from being used.
In addition, while performing a normal formatting operation, a damaged sector in the disk is marked with a flag to avoid the disk format data in this damaged sector to be accessed any more. As a consequence, the available storage capacity is reduced according to the marked disk format data of the damaged sectors.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention provides a method of retrieving a storage capacity occupied by a damaged sector. The storage medium is scanned to record an identity tag of the damage sector. The identity tag of the damage sector is overwritten with a null identity tag of a reserved capacity sector. The null identity tag of the reserved capacity sector is then overwritten with the identity tag of the damaged sector.
Typically, a storage medium comprises a storage capacity part and a reserved capacity part. The storage capacity part comprises multiple primary sectors, and the reserved capacity part comprises multiple secondary sectors. Each of the secondary sectors in the reserved capacity part comprises an empty identity (ID) field. Thus, by overwriting the identity tag of a damaged sector as a reserved sector, and overwriting the identity tag of a reserved sector as the damaged sector, the access sectors are not occupied. That is, more capacity of the storage medium is released to allow more data or information to be accessed.
Another method for retrieving storage capacity occupied by a damaged sector by using the reserved capacity of the storage medium is also provided by the invention. As mentioned above, the storage medium comprises a storage capacity part and a reserved capacity part. The storage capacity part comprises multiple primary sectors, each of which further comprises an identity field. The identity fields of the primary sectors in the storage capacity part are arranged in a sequential order according to the sequence of the primary sectors. The reserved capacity comprises multiple secondary sectors, each of which has an null identity field. The primary sectors are scanned to record the identity field of any damaged primary sector. A null identity field is written into the identity field of the damaged sector. The identity fields of the primary sectors are rearrange with the identity field of the damaged sector skipped to obtain a new sequential order.
The invention employs a special formatting program to replace a capacity occupied by a damaged sector with a reserved capacity. Thus, the storage capacity is retrieved and the capacity of the storage medium is not reduced even when some of the sectors are damaged.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4656532 (1987-04-01), Greenberg et al.
patent: 4814903 (1989-03-01), Kulalowski et al.
Chung Phung M.
Huang Jiawei
J. C. Patents
Windbond Electronics Corp.
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