Patent ID: 8416525

Claim:
A method of formatting magnetic media comprising: providing an integrated thin film magnetic recording head having at least two recording elements, each recording element comprising: first and second magnetically permeable thin film subpole members, separated by a substantially low permeability subgap member, a unique integrated electrically conductive coil structure embedded in part within the subgap member and in part in-between the first and second subpole members, the subgap member and subpole members forming part of a magnetic circuit; and a magnetically permeable thin film layer spanning from at least the first subpole member to the second subpole member and including one or more arbitrary recording gap patterns; wherein the at least two recording elements are substantially magnetically isolated and electrically independent of one another; and wherein the direction of film growth of the magnetically permeable thin film layer is substantially orthogonal to the direction of thin film growth of the first and second magnetically permeable thin film subpole members; and passing magnetic media over the magnetic recording head to format the magnetic media based on the one or more arbitrary recording gap patterns.