Patent ID: 7616402

Claim:
A recording disk drive comprising: a recording disk; an actuator arm extending over a surface of the recording disk and supporting a head slider; a first shroud having a shroud surface defined along a cylindrical space coaxial to a rotation axis of the recording disk, the shroud surface opposed to a peripheral end surface of the recording disk at a certain constant distance; a guiding wall connected to the first shroud, said guiding wall getting farther from the peripheral end surface of the recording disk at locations further downstream from the first shroud in a direction of rotation of the recording disk; a second shroud having a shroud surface defined along a cylindrical space coaxial to the rotation axis of the recording disk, the shroud surface opposed to the peripheral end surface of the recording disk at a certain constant distance, said second shroud being spaced downstream from the first shroud in the direction of rotation of the recording disk, said second shroud being spaced upstream from the actuator arm; an auxiliary guiding wall connected to the second shroud, said auxiliary guiding wall opposed to the guiding wall; and a shroud plate cantilevering from the auxiliary guiding wall toward the guiding wall, the shroud plate having between the guiding wall and the auxiliary guiding wall an end surface defined along a cylindrical space coaxial to the rotation axis of the recording disk, the end surface opposed to the peripheral end surface of the recording disk at a certain constant distance at a location downstream of the first shroud and upstream of the second shroud, the end surface being spaced upstream from the actuator arm, said shroud plate extending along a virtual plane perpendicular to the rotation axis of the recording disk.