Maxtor Corporation

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.v.

Hai Chi Nguy

Steven E Lambert

Robert E Eaton

Bruce Lairson

Jeffrey R Williams

Michael L Mallary

Mark A Nichols

Adam F Torabi

Steven B Marshall

Nelson Cheng

Tim Glassburn

George H Bellesis

Steven E Stupp

Bill Edward Higgins

A method for monitoring a fly height of a magnetic transducer comprises flying the magnetic transducer at a distance of separation from a recording media. The fly height is modulated with a predetermined modulation frequency with a fly height control device. A read-back signal is read from the recording media with the magnetic transducer. A change of the read back signal is measured that results from modulating the fly height. A fault signal is provided in response to the change crossing a threshold.

Monitoring a fly height of a magnetic transducer

A method for monitoring a fly height of a magnetic transducer comprises flying the magnetic transducer at a distance of separation from a recording media. A read-back signal is read with the magnetic transducer from the recording media. The read-back signal is rectified to produce a rectified signal. The rectified signal is filtered thereby providing a filtered signal. A fault signal is provided in response to the filtered signal exceeding a threshold.

Demagnetizing magnetic media for recording data in a data storage device includes placing the magnetic media in a magnetic field at a first strength, and gradually reducing the magnetic field to a second strength to essentially eliminate net magnetization in the magnetic media.

Demagnetization of magnetic media for data storage device using gradually reduced magnetic field

A drive housing () for shielding a storage disk () and a data transducer () of a disk drive () from external magnetic fields includes a housing shield () positioned near the storage disk (). The housing shield () includes a base shield portion () and a cover shield portion () that are positioned substantially parallel to the storage disk (). The housing shield () also includes one or more wall shield portions () oriented substantially perpendicular to the storage disk (). The housing shield () is uniquely sized, shaped and formed from material to have an attenuation of field of at least approximately 10 dB. With this design, the influence of external magnetic fields is reduced and the incidence of damage to data stored on the storage disk () is reduced. Additionally, the housing shield () enhances the accurate transfer of information between the storage disk () and the data transducer () of the disk drive ().

Magnetic shield for the drive housing of a recording drive

A method for reducing flux concentrating capacity of a shield in a magnetic read/write head positioned to read perpendicular residual magnetic fields on a magnetic media. Permeability of the shield is reduced in a direction oriented perpendicular to the magnetic media by inducing a transverse magnetic bias field within the shield.

Transverse biased shields for perpendicular recording to reduce stray field sensitivity

A magnetic recording system includes a magnetic medium and a magnetic write head to write information on the magnetic medium. The magnetic write head includes a write pole having a downstream side that has a concave shaped portion when the write pole is viewed from an air bearing surface of the magnetic write head.

Concave trailing edge write pole for perpendicular recording

A method and apparatus for determining a lifetime for a medium to fail due to thermal decay of a magnetization pattern is provided. Different stress magnetic fields are applied to a write head for writing to a machine-readable medium resulting in a magnetic field on the medium. A time to failure, corresponding to each of the different stress magnetic fields, is determined, the time to failure being an amount of time for an amplitude of a signal on the medium to degrade beyond a predetermined failure criteria. A time to failure without a stress magnetic field is determined based on the corresponding times to failure determined for each of the different stress currents.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Hai Chi Nguy