INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS AND HEAD EVACUATION PROCESSING METHOD THEREFOR

• US 20110261482A1
• Filed: 03/29/2011
• Published: 10/27/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/27/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: HIRATA, Kazushige
• Granted Patent: US 8,804,271 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 360/74.1
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 19/042 due to external shock or vibration
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 19/043 by detecting a free-fall condition
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 21/12 Raising and lowering; Back-spacing or forward-spacing along track; Returning to starting position otherwise than during transducing operation

Abstract

An information processing apparatus includes a hard disk drive, an acceleration detection portion, and a controller. The hard disk drive has a protective function for moving a head from a recording area of a disk to an evacuation position. The acceleration detection portion is configured to detect, as a detection target acceleration, an acceleration in one of a vertical direction and an almost-vertical direction with respect to a gravity direction. The controller is configured to detect a movement based on the acceleration detected as the detection target acceleration and determine whether to activate the protective function of the hard disk drive based on the detected movement.

Claims

1. An information processing apparatus, comprising:

a hard disk drive that has a protective function for moving a head from a recording area of a disk to an evacuation position;

an acceleration detection portion configured to detect, as a detection target acceleration, an acceleration in one of a vertical direction and an almost-vertical direction with respect to a gravity direction; and

a controller configured to detect a movement based on the acceleration detected as the detection target acceleration and determine whether to activate the protective function of the hard disk drive based on the detected movement.

2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the controller sets, regarding the detection target acceleration, a fact that an acceleration larger than a preset value has continued for over a preset time as a condition of the movement for determining whether to activate the protective function.

3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein the acceleration detection portion is capable of detecting accelerations in triaxial directions orthogonal to one another, judges, out of the biaxial directions among the triaxial directions, the axial direction closest to the direction vertical to the gravity direction, and detects an acceleration in the judged axial direction as the detection target acceleration.

4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 3,

wherein the biaxial directions are predetermined biaxial directions among the triaxial directions.

5. The information processing apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising

a storage portion configured to store a result of the judgment on the axial direction obtained by the acceleration detection portion as an axial direction in which an acceleration is to be detected at least as the next detection target acceleration,

wherein the controller detects, regarding the axial direction stored by the storage portion, the movement based on the acceleration detected by the acceleration detection portion.

6. The information processing apparatus according to claim 5,

wherein the hard disk drive includes the disk and a disk drive portion for driving the disk, and

wherein the controller outputs a control signal for putting a brake on the disk drive portion after activating the protective function.

7. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein the acceleration detection portion is capable of detecting accelerations in triaxial directions orthogonal to one another and detects an acceleration component vertical to the gravity direction out of the biaxial directions among the triaxial directions as the detection target acceleration.

8. The information processing apparatus according to claim 7,

wherein the biaxial directions are predetermined biaxial directions among the triaxial directions.

9. A head evacuation processing method for an information processing apparatus including a built-in hard disk drive that has a protective function for moving a head from a recording area of a disk to an evacuation position, the head evacuation processing method comprising:

detecting, as a detection target acceleration, an acceleration in one of a vertical direction and an almost-vertical direction with respect to a gravity direction; and

detecting a movement based on the acceleration detected as the detection target acceleration and determining whether to activate the protective function of the hard disk drive based on the detected movement.