Patent ID: 7047438

Claim:
A method of operating a hard disk drive of the type including a defect map that identifies at least one defect on a magnetic disk in the hard disk drive, and that remaps at least one defective sector associated with the defect, and at least one non-defective pad sector disposed adjacent thereto, to spare sectors disposed elsewhere on the magnetic disk, the method comprising, subsequent to initiation of operational use of the hard disk drive: (a) accessing the defect map to identify the pad sector; (b) scanning the pad sector and detecting that the pad sector is defective, wherein the detection that the pad sector is defective is indicative of growth of the defect on the magnetic disk over time; and (c) in response to detecting that the pad sector is defective, updating the defect map to identify the pad sector as being defective, and remapping an additional sector disposed adjacent to the defective pad sector to an additional spare sector on the magnetic disk to create an additional pad sector in the defect map.