Patent ID: 7469468

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a read/write head for a disk drive, comprising: producing a wafer containing multiple read/write heads, each read/write head having at least one conductor provided from a part of a read element to at least one external contact pad and at least one other conductor provided from at least one other external contact pad to a point electrically coupled to a shield at least partially surrounding the read element; separating the wafer into a plurality of rows of read/write heads; lapping each row of read/write heads to produce a plurality of individual read/write heads having an electrical isolation between the shield and the part of the read element via the at least one other external contact pad and the at least one external contact pad; and monitoring, for one of the read/write heads of the row, the electrical isolation between the shield and the part of the read element via the at least one other external contact pad and the at least one external contact pad.