Patent ID: 7274524

Claim:
A signal detector to detect symbols in a read back signal, comprising: a first detector to generate raw decisions as a function of the read back signal; a post processor to identify a list of N possible defects in the raw decisions; a selector that selects at least one of said N possible defects, that at least one of applies a correction technique and marks an erasure, and that generates a modified decision based on said selected one of said N possible defects, where N is an integer greater than one; and a decoder that decodes the modified decision to generate a final decision, that evaluates the final decision to determine whether a correct codeword is generated, that outputs the final decision if the correct codeword is generated, and that causes the selector to select another one of said N possible defects when the correct codeword is not generated, wherein said decoder performs at least one of Reed-Solomon decoding, Bose Chaudhuri Hocquerghen (BCH) decoding, Hamming decoding, and Trellis decoding.