Abstract: Herein is disclosed a method and apparatus for optimizing a disc drive for audio-visual data storage and retrieval by responding to a certain read-time error in a manner that preserves data flow. In response to a read-time error in which a data sector is misread, the disc drive responds by transferring the errant data to the host nonetheless, and then by informing the host of the error. The data may be partially corrected by an error correction function. The aforementioned behavior is a departure from the traditional sequential paradigm of a conventional disc drive. The new behavior preserves data flow, a quality important to audio-visual drives.