Binary Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) encoded data is processed by obtaining a set of syndromes associated with the binary BCH encoded data, including a subset of odd-term syndromes and a subset of even-term syndromes. During initialization of a variant error-locator polynomial, {circumflex over (Ω)}(x), the subset of even-term syndromes, but not the subset of odd-term syndromes, are loaded into the variant error-locator polynomial, {circumflex over (Ω)}(0)(x).