1 is fairly short accordingly for purposes of entry annotation in the media 39 s sparing table burst errors 300 a and 300 b can be combined thus only one entry need be made in the media 39 s sparing table to account for the two burst errors accordingly all of the physical addresses that correspond to the media portions within burst errors 300 a and 300 b as well as the media portion between the two burst errors will be spared this area is indicated at 301 consider now burst errors 300 b and 300 c notice now that the distance between them 12 is fairly large in this case the two burst errors would not be combined for purposes of entry annotation in the media 39 s sparing table this is because doing so would necessarily result in sparing too much good media i e that which corresponds to the length l 2 disposed between the two burst errors as further examples consider media 302 and 304 notice that media 302 has four burst errors normally this would result in four separate entries in the media 39 s sparing table notice however that lengths l 3 and l 4 are such that the burst errors between which each occurs can be combined for purposes of entry annotation in the media 39 s sparing table accordingly one of the entries in the media 39 s sparing table would correspond to burst errors 302 a 302 b and the media therebetween and one of the entries would correspond to burst errors 302 c 302 d and the media therebetween hence whereas in the past four separate sparing table entries would be needed to account for burst errors 302 a 302.