Method, apparatus and program storage device for magnetic disk drive protection

A computer system equipped with a magnetic disk drive, comprising:

• a stable position data storage that stores stable-state information that represents that the magnetic disk drive is placed in an operating environment that satisfies a certain condition;
• an acceleration sensor that senses changes in acceleration acting on the magnetic disk drive;
• a rest-state measuring unit that determines whether the magnetic disk drive is in a state of rest based on information acquired by the acceleration sensor;
• an operating state determination unit that, in response to a first determination by the rest-state measuring unit that the magnetic disk drive is in a state of rest, determines whether the state of rest corresponds to stable state stored in the stable position data storage and sets detection sensitivity to a sign that indicates an impending shock to the magnetic disk drive based on a result of a second determination;
• and
• a magnetic head operation controller that controls operation of the magnetic disk drive including retraction of a magnetic head based on the detection sensitivity set by the operating state determination unit.

A magnetic disk drive control method for controlling a magnetic disk drive in a computer, comprising:

• determining whether the magnetic disk drive is in a state of rest based on information acquired by an acceleration sensor;
• determining whether a state of rest of the magnetic disk drive corresponds to a stored stable state;
• setting a detection sensitivity to a sign that indicates an impending shock to the magnetic disk drive based on the determination of whether the state of rest corresponds to the stable state stored in the predetermined storage unit;
• and
• retracting a magnetic head if the sign that indicates the impending shock to the magnetic disk drive are detected based on the detection sensitivity.

A program storage device, comprising:

• program instructions embodied upon a computer-readable medium executable by a processing device to perform operations for controlling a magnetic disk drive, the operations comprising:
• determining whether the magnetic disk drive is in a state of rest based on information acquired by an acceleration sensor;
• determining whether a state of rest that the magnetic disk drive is found to be in corresponds to a stable state stored in a predetermined storage unit;
• setting detection sensitivity to a sign that indicates an impending shock to the magnetic disk drive based on the determination of whether the state of rest that magnetic disk drive is found to be in corresponds to the stable state stored in a predetermined storage unit;
• and
• retracting a magnetic head if the sign that indicates the impending shock to the magnetic disk drive are detected based on the detection sensitivity.