Determining if a memory error is hard error or a soft error

The invention provides a method for determining if soft (temporary) or hard errors have occurred in memory. When an error is detected, preferably using an error-correcting code (ECC) algorithm, it is corrected and written back to the memory location where the error was detected (this is known as "reactive scrubbing"). This "corrected" data is then read back from the memory location. If the data that is read out is correct, then the memory location of the detected error is written into a register block to indicate a soft error. If the data that was read back is not correct, then the memory location must contain a hard error, and that information is written to a register block.