1. A method for synchronously decoding head positioning servo information recorded within embedded servo sectors of a hard disk drive including a rotating data storage disk, a data transducer head positionable at concentric data tracks formed on a storage surface of the disk by a head position servo loop, and a synchronous digital data channel connected to the data transducer head for providing plural synchronous digital data samples of each analog magnetic flux transition read from a data storage surface, each embedded servo sector having head positioning servo information including a preamble pattern, a servo address mark, and an interleaved Gray coded track identification field for providing coarse head positioning information, comprising the steps of: detecting arrival of each embedded servo sector at the data transducer head, synchronizing a timing loop to the preamble pattern to provide a sample clock, controlling timing and phase of an analog to digital conversion means with the sample clock for sampling magnetic flux transitions read from the embedded servo sector being read to provide synchronous digital data samples, passing the synchronous digital data samples through a digital finite impulse response filter to provide conditioned digital data samples, decoding within a synchronous interleave maximum likelihood decoder the conditioned digital data samples into coded data groups, decoding the coded data groups with a post coder into a stream of binary servo data, detecting the servo address mark within the stream of binary servo data with a synchronous servo address mark detector to provide a servo sector clocking signal, resetting a timing means with the servo sector clocking signal, for marking in time the location of the interleaved Gray coded track identification field, and decoding the interleaved Gray coded track identification field within the stream of binary servo data with an interleave Gray code decoder to provide the coarse head positioning information to the head position servo loop for positioning the head.