Patent ID: 7620519

Claim:
A method of producing data to characterize a read/write head of a hard disk drive, the method comprising: loading the hard disk drive into a burn-in chamber; measuring the flying height of the read/write head at a first temperature in the burn-in chamber, wherein the flying height is the distance between the read/write head and a surface of a disk of the hard disk drive when the read/write head floats over the surface of the disk while the disk is being rotated by a motor of the hard disk drive; measuring the flying height of the head at a second temperature, that is different from the first temperature, in the burn-in chamber; postulating a linear relationship between the flying height of the head and a temperature of the ambient air in the burn-in chamber based on the measured flying heights of the head at the first and second temperatures in the burn-in-chamber; and ascertaining the flying height of the head at a third temperature, that is different from the first and second temperatures, using the linear relationship between the flying height of the head and the temperature of the ambient air in the burn-in chamber.