Abstract: Methods of compensating for radial incoherence in servo information that is read from adjacent servo tracks that have a phase offset relative to one another on a data storage disk of a disk drive are provided. While a transducer is seeking to a target track, the transducer generate a servo information signal that has a first component from servo information read from a first servo track on the disk and a second component from servo information read from a second servo track that is radially adjacent to the first servo track. The servo information in the first and second servo tracks are offset by a non-zero phase error relative to one another and are in a same servo sector on the disk. The servo information signal is sampled to generate a series of sampled servo values. A phase error of a group of the sampled servo values is determined. The sampled servo values are compensated in response to the determined phase error to generate compensated servo values with at least reduced phase error.

Abstract: A discrete-time filtering method for identifying defects in a magnetic medium, comprising the steps of: reading data signals from at least a portion of the medium; sampling the data signals to generate discrete time sample data; processing the sample data in a discrete time filter to detect deviation of the signal corresponding to media defects; and comparing the deviation of the signal to one or more threshold values to identify corresponding defect types on the recording medium. The filter can be configured to have an impulse response substantially matched to deviation of the signal corresponding to media defects.