Embodiments of the present invention recite a method of preserving data on
a hard disk drive. In one embodiment, a copy of data is read from at
least one sector of a hard disk drive and stored in a memory location of
the hard disk drive. At least a portion of the data in the memory
location of the hard disk drive is then replaced to create a modified
copy of data. A copy of the modified copy of data is then stored in a
non-volatile memory location of the hard disk drive. Finally, the data
from the at least one sector is replaced with the modified copy of data.