a system and method are herein disclosed for managing memory defects in an information handling system . more particularly , a system and method are described for generating a usable memory map which excludes memory locations containing defect memory elements . in an information handling system , a memory defect map , which contains information about the location of defective memory elements , is coupled to the memory device . as a map of memory usable by the system is created , usable memory regions containing defective memory elements are excluded from the memory map . the memory map is passed to the operating system , which uses only those regions of memory designated as usable and non - defective .