Correlating a short cycle is much more difficult than correlating a long cycle even if you have complete information about the long cycle. If the bits on the d

Correlating a short cycle is much more difficult than correlating a long cycle even if you have complete information about the long cycle. If the bits on the disk have a pattern, it is much more likely to repeat against a short cycle. However, as I pointed out, it's all pretty much moot. I've never seen anybody cough up evidence that a disk could be recovered after even a single write with merely zeroes. In fact, there was a competition and prize for a while that could be won if you could demonstrated reconstruction of a disk after even a single platter write. Nobody ever managed to claim it.