In an in-drive erase process in a single-surface HDD, erase spirals on the surface being erased can be employed to control writer position. A reader-to-writer timing offset value is determined for a plurality of radial locations on the surface to be erased, and an erase window is determined for a radial location disposed between two erase spirals. The erase window includes an erase start time, which is based on a spiral exit time of a reader and the reader-to-writer timing offset value for the radial location, and an erase stop time, which is based on a spiral encounter time of the reader and the reader-to-writer timing offset value. The erase window prevents complete erasure of erase spirals, so that the servo system of the HDD can continue to servo off of the erase spirals. The erase spirals may be written with a lower slope than conventional spiral tracks.

A reference spiral is written on a recording surface of a magnetic storage disk that is free of position or timing information. The reference spirals are written on the recording surface with a substantially uniform slope by using open loop control of the position of a read/write head in conjunction with an iterative learning control scheme. A voltage profile applied to a voice coil motor is adapted over multiple iterations of moving the read/write head across the recording surface to closely approximate a target voltage profile, and the reference spiral is written using the adapted voltage profile. In addition, ramp contact detection based on actuator current profile may be employed to achieve full utilization of available actuator stroke.

A write head is positioned over a disk surface of a hard disk drive during a self-servo write process. A virtual window mode is employed for positioning the write head, in which the read channel of the hard disk drive continuously searches for servo spirals, but spiral detection is disabled except during specific time intervals, or virtual windows. Each virtual window is associated with one specific servo spiral on the disk surface, and has a predetermined duration. The duration and timing of these virtual windows may be selected to ensure that spiral detection is enabled while a read head of the hard disk drive passes over the associated servo spiral, even when servo spiral placement is not ideal.

A write head is positioned over a disk surface of a hard disk drive during a self-servo write process. A virtual window mode is employed for positioning the write head, in which the read channel of the hard disk drive continuously searches for servo spirals, but spiral detection is disabled except during specific time intervals, or virtual windows. Each virtual window is associated with one specific servo spiral on the disk surface, and has a predetermined duration. The duration and timing of these virtual windows may be selected to ensure that spiral detection is enabled while a read head of the hard disk drive passes over the associated servo spiral, even when servo spiral placement is not ideal.

A magnetic write head is positioned based on position signals generated by a read head as the read head crosses a plurality of reference spirals. The spiral gate for monitoring a particular reference spiral is timed to begin at a time based on the radial position of the magnetic head when crossing the preceding reference spiral. In this way, the spiral crossing time for the particular reference spiral can be estimated with sufficient accuracy that the spiral gate coincides with the magnetic head crossing the particular reference spiral. Consequently, spiral detection is assured, even in the presence of large non-repeatable runout.

A magnetic write head is positioned based on position signals generated by a read head as the read head crosses a plurality of reference spirals. The spiral gate for monitoring a particular reference spiral is timed to begin at a time based on the radial position of the magnetic head when crossing the preceding reference spiral. In this way, the spiral crossing time for the particular reference spiral can be estimated with sufficient accuracy that the spiral gate coincides with the magnetic head crossing the particular reference spiral. Consequently, spiral detection is assured, even in the presence of large non-repeatable runout.

Example control circuitry, data storage devices, and methods for parallel self-servo write in a data storage device are described. The data storage device may include multiple heads actuated over different surfaces of a data storage device and receive read signals from two different heads over two different surfaces in parallel. Position error signals may be determined from each read signal and corresponding position compensation values may be determined for their respective microactuators. Application of these compensation values may maintain their relative positions for parallel writing of servo tracks based on their respective spiral reference patterns and TPI settings.

Example circuits, data storage devices, and methods to provide parallel self-servo write in a data storage device are described. The data storage device may include multiple heads actuated over respective surfaces of storage media and at least two preamplifiers and read paths to a channel circuit. Control circuitry may select heads connected through different preamplifiers for parallel self-servo write and receive read signals from the selected heads in parallel. These read signals, which may be based on self-servo write reference spirals previously written to the storage media, may be used to determine respective position error signals for the two heads and control their respective positions with corresponding control signals to a shared voice control motor and respective micro and/or milli actuators on the arms supporting the heads.

According to one embodiment, a magnetic recording device includes a magnetic recording medium, a magnetic head configured to record information on the magnetic recording medium, and a controller configured to control the magnetic recording medium and the magnetic head. The magnetic head includes a coil, a first magnetic pole configured to generate a magnetic field according to a recording current supplied to the coil, and a light emitting section configured to irradiate the magnetic recording medium with a light to locally increase a temperature of the magnetic recording medium. The controller is configured to perform a first operation and a second operation. In the first operation, the controller is configured to record a first servo position information in a first region of the magnetic recording medium. In the second operation, the controller is configured to perform a repair operation if a first condition is not satisfied.

According to one embodiment, there is provided a method of manufacturing a disk device. The method includes acquiring information on a write width of a head. The method includes adjusting a seek speed of the head at a time of writing a spiral pattern to a disk according to the acquired write width.