A disk drive stores overhead information corresponding to multiple servo
sectors within a dedicated data sector in a customer data region of a
data storage disk. The overhead information includes servo data for which
the information content does not depend upon the physical location of the
data on the disk surface. During a data storage operation, the overhead
data is read from the dedicated data sector and stored in a buffer memory
within the disk drive. A portion of the overhead data is then retrieved
from the buffer memory for each servo sector subsequently traversed by
the transducer for use in performing a data processing task related to
the servo sector.