Patent ID: 7278053

Claim:
A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform a method for locating defects on a disk drive and reconstructing and relocating data associated with the defects, said method comprising: inspecting adjacent areas around a defect on said disk drive to determine if additional defects exist on said disk drive in response to locating said defect on said disk drive; reconstructing data associated with said defect in response to locating said defect on said disk drive thereby generating reconstructed data; and storing said reconstructed data; and wherein said defect exists at sector offset SO on cylinder n of said disk drive, and wherein inspecting adjacent areas around said defect on said disk drive to determine if additional defects exist on said disk drive comprises inspecting sector offsets SO, SO+1 byte, and SO−1 byte on cylinders n+1 and n−1 of the disk drive; and wherein inspecting adjacent areas around said defect on said disk drive to determine if additional defects exist on said disk drive further comprises inspecting sector offsets SO, SO+1 byte, and SO−1 byte on cylinders n+3 and n−3 in response to locating additional defects on said disk drive in one or more locations corresponding to at least one of sector offsets SO, SO+1 byte, and SO−1 byte on cylinders n+1 and n−1 of the disk drive.