Maxtor Corporation

Seagate Technology Incorporated

Douglas J Krajnovich

Erhard Theodor Schreck

Kaz Saito

Michael L Mallary

Don Brunnett

Xiaoping Hu

Brian D Strom

Donald Joseph Brunnett

Quinn Jay Haddock

Timothy A Riener

Francis P Crimi

Bruce C Schardt

Kazuhiro Saito

Scott A Hughes

Mark Heimbaugh

Jingbo Yu

Andrew LeFebvre

Chris Hawks

Tadashi Yogi

Joerg Ferber

Duc Bahn

A disk drive includes a rotatable storage disk, a suspension, and a slider assembly. The slider assembly includes a slider body, a read/write head that magnetically interacts with the storage disk, and a slider mover. The slider body is secured to the suspension in a fashion that allows the slider body to roll. The slider mover selectively rolls the slider body in a controlled fashion. With this design, the slider mover selectively rolls the slider body to control a head-to-disk spacing of the read/write head. Further, the slider body can have a roll axis and the read/write head and the slider mover can be positioned on opposite sides of the roll axis.

Slider with actuator-transducer separation and roll activation

A disk drive includes a rotatable storage disk, a suspension, and a slider assembly. The slider assembly includes a slider body, a first slider deformer and a second slider deformer. Activation of the first slider deformer deforms the slider body, and activation of the second slider deformer deforms the slider body. Further, the slider deformers can be independently controllable. The read element is positioned near the first slider deformer and the write element is positioned near the second slider deformer. Activation of the first slider deformer adjusts a read head-to-disk spacing of the read element and activation of the second slider deformer adjusts a write head-to-disk spacing of the write element. Further, activation of the first slider deformer does not significantly influence the write head-to-disk spacing and activation of the second slider deformer does not significantly influence the read head-to-disk spacing.

Slider with independent fly-height adjustment of reader and writer

A disk drive includes a rotatable storage disk, an actuator motor, a slider that magnetically interacts with the storage disk, and a drive circuitry. A portion of the slider moves between a first position wherein the slider does not contact the storage disk and a second position wherein the slider contacts the storage disk. The drive circuitry can detect when the position of the slider changes between these positions. In one embodiment, the drive circuitry monitors off-track movement of the slider to detect when the slider has moved between these positions. The drive circuitry can also current that is directed to the actuator motor that is used to compensate for off-track movement to detect when the slider moves between these positions. In yet another embodiment, the drive circuitry monitors a rotational velocity of the storage disk to detect approximately when the slider moves between these positions.

System for detecting a change in head-to-disk contact status in a disk drive

A disk drive includes a storage disk, a suspension and a slider assembly. The slider assembly includes a trailing half having a surface area, and a leading half having a substantially similar surface area to that of the trailing half. The percentage of the surface area of the trailing half that is directly secured to the suspension is greater than the percentage of the surface area of the leading half that is directly secured to the suspension. In another embodiment, the slider assembly includes a top surface that is secured to the suspension so that during an increase in temperature of the suspension only a portion of the top surface is subjected to a force that causes concavity of the slider assembly along a crown and/or a cross-crown direction. In yet another embodiment, the slider assembly is secured to the suspension so that a portion of the slider assembly cantilevers away from the suspension. In a further embodiment, the slider assembly has a leading edge and an opposing trailing edge. In this embodiment, the slider assembly is secured to the suspension so that an increase in temperature of the suspension causes more cross-crown concavity relative to the storage disk at the trailing edge than at the leading edge.

Passive compensation for pole tip protrusion by slider bending

Disk drive preconditioning allows the head-disk interface to be burnished or worn so that head-disk interference is reduced or eliminated before servo track writing. The head is positioned closer to the disk than the normal fly height during a preconditioning sweep and then returns to the normal fly height during servo track writing.

Head-disk interface preconditioning using write current before servo track write

A disk drive includes a drive housing, an actuator arm mounted to the drive housing, a head suspension assembly secured to the actuator arm, a spindle secured to the drive housing, a storage disk positioned on the spindle and a spacer positioned on the spindle. The actuator arm includes a suspension mounting side and the spindle includes a disk mounting surface. A actual measured distance along a first axis between the suspension mounting side and the disk mounting surface is measured. The spacer is positioned between the disk mounting surface and the storage disk. The spacer has a spacer height along the first axis that is based upon the actual measured distance.

Method of correcting Z-height errors during assembly of a hard disk drive

Growing community of inventors

Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Douglas J Krajnovich