Patent ID: 8390948

Claim:
A disk drive comprising: a plurality of disk surfaces and a plurality of corresponding heads; and a preamp comprising: a first integrated circuit coupled to a first plurality of the heads, wherein the first integrated circuit comprising: a first read-output for outputting a preamplified read signal; a first write-input for receiving a first write signal; a write-output-passthrough for outputting a passthrough write signal in response to the first write signal; a read-input-passthrough for receiving a passthrough read signal; and a second integrated circuit coupled to a second plurality of the heads, wherein the second integrated circuit comprising: a second read-output for outputting the passthrough read signal; a second write-input for receiving the passthrough write signal; and control circuitry operable to: configure the preamp to select one of the heads during a read operation, and configure the preamp to select one of the heads during a write operation; process the preamplified read signal at the read-output of the first integrated circuit during the read operation; and apply the first write signal to the write-input of the first integrated circuit during a write operation.