Did You Know...
...that in 1800 ether was first used by partyers as a fun diversion? Sniffing the gas led to hilarious and raucous laughter as people watched each other become more and more intoxicated and silly. Several doctors independently realized the value ether would have to anesthetize surgery patients. Of those who claimed rights to the "discovery," none had a happy ending. One had a seizure and died defending his rights. Another spent his life in an asylum because he had been denied acclaim. A third became addicted to chloroform and, in a New York City jail, he soaked a cloth in the drug, severed an artery and bled to death.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8107186 | Determination of timing based servo pattern type In a magnetic tape drive having a servo read system with at least one read head, the system configured to read servo pattern information as a magnetic tape is moved longitudinally with respect to the at least one read head, the servo pattern comprising a timing-base... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8107185 | Magnetic disk device including a sensor in a case A magnetic disk device includes a magnetic head assembly, which includes magnetic heads, support plates, and a flexible wiring substrate that are integrally formed. The magnetic heads include heating elements for making head element parts protrude toward magnetic di... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8102616 | Magnetic recording medium, method of fabricating the same, and magnetic recording apparatus According to one embodiment, there is provided a magnetic recording medium having a data region in which a plurality of recording tracks, each including magnetic dots arrayed in a down-track direction with a pitch p, are formed in a cross-track direction, and a serv... | 01/24/2012 |
| 8098452 | Flying height measurement Some of the embodiments of the present disclosure provide a disk drive system comprising a disk drive system comprising a disk having a track upon a surface of the disk, the track including a first data-storing sector and a second data storing sector, and a servo se... | 01/17/2012 |
| 8098450 | Fly-height management in a hard disk drive (HDD) A hard disk drive (HDD) including a first resistive temperature detector (RTD) configured to detect a temperature generated by proximity of a slider and a media. The first RTD is proximate an air bearing surface (ABS) of the slider. The HDD also includes a second RT... | 01/17/2012 |
| 8098451 | Systems and methods for variable fly height measurement Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for determining fly height. For example, a system for fly height determination is disclosed that includes a head assembly disposed in relation to a storage medium, a write channel, and a read c... | 01/17/2012 |
| 8094404 | Propagation self servo write system and method for storage devices employing sector-servo scheme A self-servo writing circuit including a controller. The controller is in communication with a read/write head having a read element and a write element, in which the read element is radially offset from the write element by a first predetermined distance. The contr... | 01/10/2012 |
| 8094403 | Correcting errors in position of an HDD write-head A hard-disk drive (HDD) with a current adjustment component is provided. The current adjustment component changes an amount of current to a magnetic-recording head of the HDD to cause a change in the strength of a magnetic write field produced by the magnetic-record... | 01/10/2012 |
| 8089718 | Method and apparatus for increasing storage capacity of a hard disk drive A method and apparatus for improving the capacity of a hard disk drive is provided. In one embodiment, a portion of timing information is written to a first disk prior to coupling the first disk with a hard disk drive. The first disk is then coupled with the hard di... | 01/03/2012 |
| 8089719 | Finding touchdown frequency for a head in a disk drive A disk drive comprising a head actuated over a disk, and a touchdown sensor for generating a sensor signal. The sensor signal is filtered using at least three bandpass filters to generate at least three filtered signals. The fly height of the head is decreased until... | 01/03/2012 |
| 8085490 | Slider fly-height control in a hard disk drive In fly-height control system, a slider comprises a spin torque oscillator that is configured for generating an RF carrier signal which is out-of-band of a frequency band of read data, write data, and control signals in a hard disk drive. ... | 12/27/2011 |
| 8085489 | Method for writing servo patterns and disk drive including a controller for writing servo patterns according to the method A method for writing servo patterns onto a disk of a disk drive. The method includes providing a plurality of different drive currents for an actuator while pushing the actuator into a crash stop defining a swing range of the actuator. The method also includes perfo... | 12/27/2011 |
| 8085491 | Method of determining flying height of magnetic head For obtaining a flying height of a magnetic head from a magnetic disk, the magnetic head being placed in a slider arranged at an interval with the magnetic disk, an initial setting process and a flying height detecting process are performed. In the initial setting p... | 12/27/2011 |
| 8077423 | Fly-height touchdown detection circuits and methods In one embodiment, the present invention includes an apparatus that includes a circuit that generates control information that controls a height of a read head of a disk drive. The circuit comprises a filter circuit and a detector circuit. The filter circuit receive... | 12/13/2011 |
| 8077422 | Writing spirals based on servo tracks of a different sample rate Methods, systems and computer program products for launching one or more reference spiral sets using different tracks are described. In some implementations, a method can be used that includes writing a first spiral set starting at a first track and determining a ra... | 12/13/2011 |
| 8077424 | Transducer design with a sensor close to write pole A magnetic device includes a read sensor, a writer and a synchronization sensor. The magnetic device is configured for writing information to and reading information from a magnetic medium that includes a plurality of discrete magnetic bits. The writer includes a wr... | 12/13/2011 |
| 8077425 | Magnetic disk apparatus and information reproducing method A magnetic disk apparatus includes a magnetic disk that includes a plurality of zones in which a plurality of tracks are arranged for each of circumferences of a spiral, and gaps that are arranged between the zones to have a width a predetermined number of times lar... | 12/13/2011 |
| 8077426 | Magnetic disk centering method and system A system and method are described for aligning a data axis of one or more circular data-bearing tracks on an annular surface region of a magnetic media-bearing disk, with a spin axis of a spindle of a spinstand or a disk drive. The data axis is perpendicular to the ... | 12/13/2011 |
| 8077427 | Fly-height control using asynchronous sampling In one embodiment, a hard-disk drive system performs fly-height control using a read-back mode and a loop-back mode. The read-back mode measures first and second harmonics pre-recorded on the medium and divides the first measurement by the second to obtain a read-ba... | 12/13/2011 |
| 8077428 | Disk drive correcting position error signal based on velocity of head A disk drive is disclosed comprising a head actuated over a disk comprising a plurality of servo sectors that define a plurality of servo tracks. A position error signal (PES) is generated in response to the servo sectors, and a head velocity is estimated relative t... | 12/13/2011 |
| 8072702 | Atmospheric pressure measuring apparatus and method of measuring atmospheric pressure An atmospheric pressure measuring apparatus allows a transmitter to transmit an acoustic wave for measurement of the atmospheric pressure. Air propagates the acoustic wave. A receiver receives the acoustic wave. Since the intensity of the acoustic wave changes to fo... | 12/06/2011 |
| 8072703 | Disk drive detecting when head is parked on ramp A disk drive is disclosed comprising a disk, a head coupled to a distal end of an actuator arm, a voice coil motor (VCM) operable to rotate the actuator arm about a pivot in order to actuate the head radially over the disk, and a ramp located near an outer edge of t... | 12/06/2011 |
| 8068306 | Write quality of HDD heads experiencing temporary fly-height problems Approaches for improving the write quality of a hard-disk drive (HDD) head experiencing temporary fly-height problem. When the hard-disk drive is idle and heads are parked on the ramp, fluid, such as a lubricant or the condensation of vapor, may collect between the ... | 11/29/2011 |
| 8064156 | Magnetic recording disk having a transition zone A disk drive having a magnetic recording disk with a transition zone is described. A surface texture of the transition zone induces the head to fly at a greater height than when operating over a data zone, while transitioning the head to a landing zone to park. ... | 11/22/2011 |
| 8059356 | Disk drive and method for head servo control of the disk drive A disk drive. The disk drive includes a head, a moving mechanism, a first peak filter, an adaptive peak filter, and a filter controller. The head is configured to read servo data on a disk at sampling frequency. The moving mechanism is configured to move the head in... | 11/15/2011 |
| 8059355 | Dual stage head actuator assembly for tape drive An actuator assembly (22) for positioning a head (16) of a tape drive (10) relative to a storage tape that moves along a tape path (24) includes a first actuator (228), a second actuator (230) and a controller (26). T... | 11/15/2011 |
| 8059358 | Method of retaining a transducer on a base A method of retaining a transducer for a digital storage apparatus that reads and writes data to a tape as the tape is moved in a tape drive path across the transducer. According to the method a head assembly is attached to the base to be movable relative to the bas... | 11/15/2011 |
| 8059357 | Disk drive adjusting fly height when calibrating head/disk contact A disk drive is disclosed comprising a disk having a plurality of tracks, and a head actuated over the disk. The disk drive further comprises control circuitry including a fly height actuator. A fly height map is measured for at least one track. A constant FHC signa... | 11/15/2011 |
| 8054573 | Systems and methods for fly-height control using servo address mark data Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for determining fly-height adjustments. For example, various embodiments of the present invention provide storage devices that include a storage medium, a read/write head assembly disposed in r... | 11/08/2011 |
| 8049986 | Control method for magnetic disk device, magnetic disk device, and magnetic disk According to one embodiment, a control method for a magnetic disk device includes writing data by varying a phase of the array period of the plurality of magnetic elements or a phase of the time period of the recording signal in one section of the track from a corre... | 11/01/2011 |
| 8045286 | Contact type thin film magnetic head with heater for distance control A contact type thin film magnetic head and method of using the same are provided. The contact type thin film magnetic head comprises a head element that is provided on a disk-facing surface of a slider, a magnetic disk, and heating elements disposed in a plane posit... | 10/25/2011 |
| 8040630 | Method and apparatus for estimating touchdown of a slider in a hard disk drive A hard disk drive using an increase in servo address mark delays to create a touchdown flag in response to a slider making contact with a rotating disk surface while accessing a track. This may be used particularly when the track being accessed is located away from ... | 10/18/2011 |
| 8035913 | Parking ramp for hard disk drive An HDD parking ramp is disclosed and includes a guide portion having an inclined surface adapted to receive a lift tab associated with an actuator mounting a read/write head during an unloading/parking operation, and a parking surface adapted to accommodate the lift... | 10/11/2011 |
| 8032007 | Reading device, program, and reading method The application manager 37 conducts “application signaling” when a first disc is replaced with a second disc. At this point, an application is continued if it is written in an application management table assigned to a Title played last on a first disc an... | 10/04/2011 |
| 8031428 | Single-pass spiral self-servo-write A self-servo-write system including a timing control module and a position control module. The timing control module is configured to generate (i) timing information of a first set of servo spirals and (ii) timing control signals for writing a second set of final se... | 10/04/2011 |
| 8031427 | Method of servo writing, method of compensating phase mismatch of servo pattern and hard disk drive on which the methods are implemented A method of servo writing for each track of a magnetic recording medium divided into a plurality of circular tracks including performing a phase adjustment operation by controlling a phase of a recording current according to a skew angle formed by a magnetic head an... | 10/04/2011 |
| 8027118 | Method and apparatus for controlling head with spin-torque oscillator in a disk drive According to one embodiment, an apparatus for controlling a head includes a transmitting module and a controller. The transmitting module is configured to transmit a write signal to a magnetic head having a spin torque oscillator at the time of recording data. The c... | 09/27/2011 |
| 8027117 | Zone servo writing using self servo writing A hard disk controller (HDC) of a hard disk drive (HDD) includes a read module, a clock generator module, and a write module. The read module reads servo spirals from a magnetic medium of the HDD via a read head of the HDD and generates read signals. The clock gener... | 09/27/2011 |
| 8018674 | Disk drive and method of measuring frictional characteristics According to one embodiment, in a disk drive, a voice coil motor is controlled to cause a head to minutely vibrate in a radial direction on a track of a disk. When the voice coil motor vibrates the head in the radial direction of the disk, frictional force occurring... | 09/13/2011 |
| 8018673 | Disk drive, method for measuring clearance and method for writing servo patterns A disk drive. The disk drive includes a plurality of head-sliders, an actuator, a plurality of clearance adjustment sections, and a controller. Each head-slider includes a slider and a magnetic-recording head on the slider for accessing a disk for storing data. The ... | 09/13/2011 |
