Patent ID: 7595958

Claim:
A system, comprising: a host device; a disk drive interfaced with said host device and including a magnetic medium for storing information using an actuator arrangement for performing a data access by moving at least one head proximate to the magnetic medium and which information may be subject to corruption when the disk drive is exposed, during said data access, to a stray magnetic field having a first threshold magnetic field intensity, which stray magnetic field is generated external to the system; and a stray magnetic field protection arrangement supported by at least a selected one of the disk drive and the host device, the stray magnetic field protection arrangement configured for detecting the stray magnetic field to which said disk drive is exposed, wherein the stray magnetic field protection arrangement causes the actuator arrangement to park responsive to the detection of the stray magnetic field having at least the first threshold magnetic field intensity and wherein the stray magnetic field protection arrangement causes the actuator arrangement to remain parked following detection of the stray magnetic field having the first threshold magnetic field intensity so long as at least one of (a) the stray magnetic field is greater than a second threshold magnetic field intensity that is less than the first threshold magnetic field intensity and (b) a read operation attempted when the stray magnetic field is between the first and second threshold magnetic field intensities results in an error.