Patent ID: 8255616

Claim:
A method comprising: in response to receiving a request to erase a first sector at a non-volatile memory: storing a first status indicator at a sector header of the non-volatile memory at a first time, the first status indicator to indicate the first sector is to be placed an erased state; erasing the first sector of the non-volatile memory at a second time, the second time after the first time; storing a second status indicator at the sector header at a third time, the third time after the second time, the second status indicator to indicate the first sector is in the erased state; in response to determining, at a fourth time after the third time, that the second status indicator matches the first status indicator: storing a third status indicator at a location of the sector header at a fifth time after the fourth time; storing a fourth status indicator at the sector header at a sixth time after the fifth time; and determining if the third status indicator was properly stored based on a comparison of a value stored at the location of the sector header and the fourth status indicator.