Patent ID: 7342741

Claim:
A method of defining locations of data tracks for a surface of a magnetic medium in a disk drive, the disk drive including a read/write transducer associated with said surface, the method comprising: (a) writing servo information in tracks on said surface at a track pitch; (b) measuring a track width performance of said read/write transducer by a method further comprising: (d) writing a first test pattern comprising a first waveform with said read/write transducer at a location t on a surface of said magnetic medium; (e) reading said first test pattern and measuring an error rate of the signal; (f) moving said read/write transducer in a first direction to a position a distance d from said location t and writing a second test pattern comprised of a waveform different from said first waveform; (g) moving said read/write transducer in a second direction to a position a from said location t and writing a third test pattern comprised of a waveform different from said first waveform; (h) reading said first test pattern at said location t and measuring an error rate of the signal; and (c) establishing a track pitch for said data tracks as a function of the performance measured in step (b).