At least one rotating memory medium such as a hard disk is installed in a hard disk drive or the like. The disk drive has a controller, controller memory and one or more heads for writing and reading to and from one or both sides of the disk. The disk is scanned for defects as sector locations, servo wedges and other information are recorded on tracks on the disk. Some unused space is reserved around the track to compensate for the area lost to defects. If a defect is detected in a sector, the sector is split into first and second parts on either side of the defective space. The location of the defective space is recorded in the controller memory and is processed like a servo wedge. In this manner, only part of the sector is lost due to the defect.