A data processing apparatus and method are provided for handling hard errors occurring in a cache of the data processing apparatus. Cache location avoid storage is provided having at least one record, with each record being used to store a cache line identifier identifying a specific cache line. On detection of an error condition, one of the records in the cache location avoid storage is allocated to store the cache line identifier for the specific cache line associated with the entry for which the error condition was detected. A clean and invalidate operation is performed in respect of the specific cache line, and the access request is then re-performed. Cache access circuitry is arranged to exclude any specific cache line identified in the cache location avoid storage from a lookup procedure.