Low cost tamper-resistant method for write-once read many (WORM) storage

A data storage system comprising:

• a magneto-optical storage disk having a plurality of sectors thereon and containing one or more fields written in an industry standard format and one or more uniquely formatted header area fields to provide an indication that said fields are Write-Once Read Many (WORM) fields, the uniquely formatted header area fields being structured to fail access attempt by read/write hardware operating according to said industry standard;
• a motor for rotating said disk at an operational rotational speed;
• a laser read/write (R/W) head unit for reading and writing information in said sectors;
• a read/write (R/W) control unit for controlling read and write operations on said disk in response to commands from an external data processing device, said R/W control unit including hardware logic uniquely set to read said one or more uniquely formatted ID fields in order to correctly interpret information contained therein;
• and
• said R/W control unit being still further adapted to disable erase in sectors containing said uniquely formatted ID fields in response to said hardware logic reading said uniquely formatted header area fields, but said R/W control unit being otherwise adapted to write data, including calibration sectors, defect lists, first available sector lists, and other information in sectors that do not contain uniquely formatted fields.

A method of operating an optical disk read/write mechanism, comprising:

• providing a magneto-optical data storage medium including:
• machine-readable indicia identifying the disk as being Simulated Write-Once Read Many (WORM) type;
• disk layout arranged for recognition by read/write hardware operating under one or more industry standards;
• information stored on the disk pursuant to the disk layout, where selected portions of the information are scrambled to render the information unreadable by read/write hardware operating according to said industry standards;
• coupling the disk to a read/write unit, and responsive to presence of the machine-readable indicia, the read/write unit disabling write operations to the disk.