Patent ID: 8069397

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a first decoder to perform first decoding by sequence detection of a signal read from a disk and to generate a first decoded output; a second decoder coupled to receive the first decoded output from the first decoder and to perform second decoding to the first decoded output to generate a first data output, in which combined operations of the first decoding and the second decoding perform iterative decoding of the signal read from the disk to recover data stored on the disk when the disk has a first sector size format; and an error correction code module coupled to receive the first decoded output from the first decoder and to apply error correction code (ECC) to the first decoded output to generate a second data output, in which combined operations of the first decoding and the ECC perform non-iterative decoding of the signal read from the disk to recover data stored on the disk when the disk has a second sector size format.