Abstract: A disc drive apparatus that communicates with and provides data storage for a host computer wherein the disc drive is adapted to provide improved audio and visual data transfer operations. The disc drive determines whether the data transfer operation is related to audio/visual data and, if so, limits the number of retry attempts available during the data read or write command. Since audio visual data is more time critical than reliability critical, limiting retry attempts does not significantly impact presentation to the user. The disc drive also enables the transfer of relatively large blocks of data that can be transferred during a single command. Limiting the retry attempts and transferring more data during a single command significantly increases audio/visual data transfer throughput between the host computer and the disc drive.