Patent ID: 7328197

Claim:
A data storage drive comprising: a transducer adapted to read transitions representing data from a storage media and convert the transitions to an analog signal; a sampler adapted to convert the analog signal into a digital format; a detector adapted to identify transitions in the digital signal and a decoder adapted to generate an output substantially corresponding to the data; a memory operable to store a plurality J of n-tuple exemplar vectors representative of potential states of the data storage drive; the memory further operable to store a first predetermined value; an interface coupled to receive a plurality n of current parameter values from the data storage drive; means for generating an n-tuple trial vector from the n parameter values; a processor operable to determine a distance between the trial vector and each exemplar vector; the processor further operable to identify an exemplar vector K which is the least distance to the trial vector, the least distance comprising an activation value; and a comparator operable to compare the activation value with the first predetermined value, whereby if the activation value is less than the first predetermined value, the current state of the data storage drive is characterized by the exemplar vector K.