A playback device includes a port configured to receive content from an external memory device, a device memory residing in the device, and a controller programmed to execute instructions that cause the controller to read a read data pattern from the defined region in the external memory device and determine if the read data pattern correlates to an expected data pattern to a predetermined level, wherein the expected data pattern is derived at least in part from a defect map of the defined region.

Described are systems and methods for performing read after write operations in multi-revolution hard disk drives, which involve comparing the results of a read after write operation to a conditioned version of the write data that is retained in buffer memory. By conditioning the write data, a synthetic read-back signal can be fashioned that emulates the signal produced when reading the magnetic disk. Such an emulated read-back signal can be directly compared to the signal read from the magnetic disk by correlation and threshold checking, or the emulated read-back signal can be combined with the read-back signal and then compared against the write data residing in the buffer memory in a data verification operation. The data verification may be qualitative so that error codes may be developed and stored.