Patent ID: 7356753

Claim:
An error correction method for detecting and correcting an error in an ECC (error correction code) block read from a storage medium, said ECC block including a PI (parity of inner-code) block and a PO (parity outer-code) block, the method comprising: executing a first directional ECC decoding and a second directional ECC decoding iteratively if a retry count of one of said first directional ECC decoding and said second directional ECC decoding being less than a first threshold count, otherwise regarding as ECC failure (skipping out of the ECC method); and executing the first directional ECC decoding and the second directional ECC decoding iteratively if an un-modified count of one of said first ECC decoding and said second ECC decoding being less than a second threshold count, otherwise regarding as ECC failure (skipping out of the ECC method).