Patent ID: 8576509

Claim:
A disk drive comprising: a disk comprising a plurality of data tracks defined by servo sectors, wherein each data track comprises a plurality of data sectors; a head actuated over the disk, the head comprising: a write element; a write fly height actuator; a read element; and a read fly height actuator; and control circuitry operable to execute a write operation to a plurality of target data sectors by: positioning the head over a target data track comprising the target data sectors; when the head is approaching the target data sectors, configuring the write fly height actuator with a pre-heat value and configuring the read fly height actuator with a read value; when the head is over one of the target data sectors, configuring the write fly height actuator with a first write value and configuring the read fly height actuator with a second write value, and writing data to the target data sector; when the head transitions from writing data to the target data sector to reading a servo sector, configuring the write fly height actuator with the pre-heat value and configuring the read fly height actuator with a read value; and after reading the servo sector, configuring the write fly height actuator with the first write value and configuring the read fly height actuator with the second write value, and continue writing data to the target data sectors.