Tape recorder and tape recording that increases empty tape area without loss of necessary data

1. A tape recording method for a tape recorder that has a tape including at least one partition and that controls access to the tape, the method comprising the steps of:

identifying a position of data on the tape;

sequentially reading necessary data areas in the data;

sequentially copying the necessary data areas to a beginning of an empty area on the tape;

creating a continuous front empty area formed of unnecessary data areas and copy source areas of the necessary data areas on the tape; and

moving a beginning of the partition (BOP) to a position immediately after the front empty area and updating position information on the BOP;

in the step of identifying a position of the data, positions of the unnecessary data areas and the necessary data areas on the tape are identified according to record numbers corresponding to the data, the record numbers being stored in a controller of the tape recorder; and

the step of copying the necessary data areas includes a step of updating, after the copying operation, a content of a record number correspondence table including positions of the copy sources and copy destinations of the data, and the copying step is repeatedly performed for the necessary data areas which exist between the beginning of the partition before being updated and an optional one of the necessary data areas.

2. The tape recording method according to claim 1 , further comprising a step of moving an end of the partition (EOP) to a position at an end of the front empty area and adjacent to the beginning of the partition (BOP) on the tape and updating position information on the EOP.

3. The tape recording method according to claim 1 wherein:

the necessary data areas created at respective copy destinations by the copying operation form a continuous necessary data group,

the necessary data group is located at a position immediately before the empty area of the tape, and

the empty area and the front empty area are arranged logically adjacent to each other to be continuous.

4. The tape recording method according to claim 3 wherein:

a logical end of data (EOD) is located at an end of the necessary data group,

the copying step includes a step of sequentially overwriting the position of the end of the data (EOD) with the necessary data areas, and

the end of the data (EOD) is sequentially rearranged at the beginning of the empty area of the tape along with the overwriting step.

5. The tape recording method according to claim 1 , wherein the position information on the BOP and the record number correspondence table are stored in a storage selected from the group consisting of: a tape cartridge memory (CM) embedded in a tape cartridge that houses the tape; a house keeping data set (HKDS) area located outside a user data area on the tape; and a memory of a host system externally connected to the tape recorder.

6. The tape recording method according to claim 1 , further comprising a step of switching the tape recorder to an idle mode before the step of identifying a position of the data on the tape, wherein the step of creating the front empty area includes a step of identifying the copy source areas of the necessary data areas as a new unnecessary data area.

7. The tape recording method according to claim 1 , further comprising the steps of:

moving the beginning of the partition (BOP) to a predetermined position in the front empty area of the tape, and moving an end of the partition (EOP) to a position immediately before the predetermined position and adjacent to the beginning of the partition (BOP); and

updating the position information on the BOP and the EOP.