Patent ID: 7212374

Claim:
A disk drive to characterize misaligned servo wedges, the disk drive comprising: an actuator arm; a head connected to a distal end of the actuator arm in which the actuator arm is rotatable about a pivot to move the head radially over the disk; a disk having a plurality of circumferential tracks, each circumferential track including a plurality of servo wedges spaced sequentially around a circumference of the track for use in seeking and track following operations, the plurality of servo wedges being misaligned relative to the head moving about the pivot; and a servo controller to characterize the misaligned servo wedges relative to the head during a seek operation by implementing the following operations: commanding the head to perform a seek operation from a starting reference track to an ending reference track; obtaining samples of wedge to wedge time (WTWT) values corresponding to time intervals between identified servo wedges for sampled tracks traversed during the seek operation; calculating WTWT variations for each sample; and calculating a calibrated misalignment value for each sample based upon WTWT variations.