US 6,603,624 B1Granted

Tape drive unit and recording medium

AssigneeSony Corporation

InventorYoshihisa Takayama

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Abstract

A drive unit includes a tape driver for writing/reading information on/from a magnetic tape in the tape cassette including the magnetic tape and a memory for writing management information for managing writing on or reading from the magnetic tape when the tape cassette is loaded, a memory driver for writing/reading management information on/from the memory of the loaded tape cassette, and a controller in which when the tape driver executes an operation of writing or erasing information on the magnetic tape, or an operation of initializing the magnetic tape, the controller controls the memory driver to set flags in the management information of the memory to indicate that the operation is being executed, and in which, in accordance with completion of the operation, the controller controls the memory driver to reset the flags.

Claims8

Dependent claims

A tape drive unit adapted for a tape cassette containing a magnetic tape and including a memory for writing management information for managing writing on or reading from said magnetic tape, said tape drive unit comprising:

tape drive means for writing/reading information on/from said magnetic tape of said tape cassette when said tape cassette is loaded thereon;
memory drive means for reading/writing management information on/from said memory of said tape cassette;
and
control means, wherein
when said tape drive means executes an operation of writing or erasing information on said magnetic tape or an operation of initializing said magnetic tape, said control means controls said memory drive means to set flags in said management information written in a header area of said memory for indicating that said operation is being executed, and
upon a completion of said operation, said control means controls said memory drive means to reset said flags in said header area, and
when said operation is interrupted before said completion of said operation, said control means controls said memory drive means to maintain said flags in said set condition.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.