US Patent 10379972 Minimizing reads for reallocated sectors

Systems and methods are disclosed for minimizing reads for reallocated sectors of a data storage medium. An apparatus may be configured to selectively skip over reallocated sectors in an LBA range without interrupting a read, via generating a skip mask or by beginning the read after the reallocated sector and reading the entire track up to the reallocated sector. When a number of sectors not read from the LBA range during the read operation is less than an amount of sectors that can be recovered based on an error correction capability, the data of the reallocated sector may be reconstructed using error correction data rather than by performing a read at the reallocated sector.