Patent ID: 8527807

Claim:
A method for rebuilding data stored on a single hard drive, the method comprises: detecting a storage error of an encoded data slice of a set of encoded data slices, wherein the set of encoded data slices represents data encoded using an error coding dispersal storage function, wherein the single hard drive is defined to have a set of addressable storage sectors, wherein encoded data slices of the set of encoded data slices are stored in addressable locations of corresponding addressable storage sectors of the set of addressable storage sectors, and wherein the encoded data slice having the storage error is stored at a first addressable location of a first addressable storage sector of the corresponding addressable storage sectors; determining a type of error for the storage error; and when the type of error is a first error type: rebuilding the encoded data slice in accordance with the error coding dispersal storage function to produce a rebuilt encoded data slice; and storing the rebuilt encoded data slice at a second addressable location in the first addressable storage sector when the type of error is a second error type: determining a second error coding dispersal storage function; re-encoding the set of encoded data slices based on the second error coding dispersal storage function to produce a re-encoded set of encoded data slices; re-defining addressable storage sectors of the single hard drive in accordance with the second error coding dispersal storage function and an error profile of the single hard drive to produce a re-defined set of addressable storage sectors; and storing the re-encoded set of encoded data slices in corresponding addressable storage sectors of the re-defined set of addressable storage sectors.