A hard disk drive that updates a retry look-up table to be commensurate with a successful retry read operation. The drive may contain a retry look-up table that contains a plurality of retry steps. Each retry step may have a different read parameter that is changed in an attempt to read data that initially created an error. The controller will reset the look-up table by swapping an N retry step with a N-1 retry step if the N step is successful in reading the data greater than a predetermined number of times. In the next retry cycle the drive will reach the N step sooner in the cycle than before the steps were swapped, thus possibly reducing the time required to successfully read the data.