Disk drive seeding data path protection with system data seed

1. A disk drive comprising:

a disk comprising a plurality of data sectors;

a head actuated over the disk; and

control circuitry operable to:

load a redundancy generator with a first seed value corresponding to system data generated internal to the disk drive;

generate first data path redundancy symbols in response to the first seed value;

write the system data and the first data path redundancy symbols to a first data sector;

load a syndrome generator with the first seed value;

generate first syndromes when reading the system data and first data path redundancy symbols from the first data sector; and

verify the validity of the system data in response to the first syndromes.

2. The disk drive as recited in claim 1 , wherein:

the first seed value comprises a system data identifier; and

the control circuitry is operable to write the system data identifier to the first data sector.

3. The disk drive as recited in claim 2 , wherein the system data identifier identifies a header data sector written to the disk to mark a beginning of a write command.

4. The disk drive as recited in claim 2 , wherein the system data identifier identifies a footer data sector written to the disk to mark an end of a write command.

5. The disk drive as recited in claim 1 , wherein the control circuitry is further operable to:

load the redundancy generator with a second seed value corresponding to user data received from a host, wherein the first seed value is different than the second seed value;

generate second data path redundancy symbols in response to the second seed value;

write the user data and the second data path redundancy symbols to a second data sector;

load the syndrome generator with the second seed value;

generate second syndromes when reading the user data and second data path redundancy symbols from the second data sector; and

verify the validity of the user data in response to the second syndromes.

6. The disk drive as recited in claim 5 , wherein the second seed value corresponds to a logical block address received from the host and assigned to the user data.

7. The disk drive as recited in claim 5 , wherein the redundancy generator is operable to generate the first and second data path redundancy symbols according to an error detection code.

8. The disk drive as recited in claim 7 , wherein the error detection code comprises a cyclic redundancy code.

9. A method of operating a disk drive, the disk drive comprising a head actuated over a disk drive comprising a plurality of data sectors, the method comprising:

loading a redundancy generator with a first seed value corresponding to system data generated internal to the disk drive;

generating first data path redundancy symbols in response to the first seed value;

writing the system data and the first data path redundancy symbols to a first data sector;

loading a syndrome generator with the first seed value;

generating first syndromes when reading the system data and first data path redundancy symbols from the first data sector; and

verifying the validity of the system data in response to the first syndromes.

10. The method as recited in claim 9 , wherein:

the first seed value comprises a system data identifier; and

the method further comprises writing the system data identifier to the first data sector.

11. The method as recited in claim 10 , wherein the system data identifier identifies a header data sector written to the disk to mark a beginning of a write command.

12. The method as recited in claim 10 , wherein the system data identifier identifies a footer data sector written to the disk to mark an end of a write command.

13. The method as recited in claim 9 , further comprising:

loading the redundancy generator with a second seed value corresponding to user data received from a host, wherein the first seed value is different than the second seed value;

generating second data path redundancy symbols in response to the second seed value;

writing the user data and the second data path redundancy symbols to a second data sector;

loading the syndrome generator with the second seed value;

generating second syndromes when reading the user data and second data path redundancy symbols from the second data sector; and

verifying the validity of the user data in response to the second syndromes.

14. The method as recited in claim 13 , wherein the second seed value corresponds to a logical block address received from the host and assigned to the user data.

15. The method as recited in claim 13 , further comprising generating the first and second data path redundancy symbols according to an error detection code.

16. The method as recited in claim 15 , wherein the error detection code comprises a cyclic redundancy code.