Patent ID: 8576624

Claim:
A method of operating non-volatile storage, comprising: a) determining whether each non-volatile storage element in a group of non-volatile storage elements on a memory die have a threshold voltage that is above a first level, the group of non-volatile storage elements store a plurality of data states, some of the non-volatile storage elements in the group store error codes; b) storing, on the memory die, indications of whether each of the non-volatile storage elements in the group have a threshold voltage that is above the first level; c) determining whether each non-volatile storage element in the group has a threshold voltage that is above a second level; d) storing, on the memory die, indications of whether each of the non-volatile storage elements in the group have a threshold voltage that is above the second level; e) determining a count of how many of the non-volatile storage elements have a threshold voltage that is between the first level and the second level, the determining is performed on the memory die based on the stored indications; f) determining whether the count is less than a threshold amount, the threshold amount corresponds to a level of errors that can be corrected using the error codes; g) establishing one of the first level or the second level as a level for distinguishing between a pair of the data states if the count is less than the threshold amount.