Patent ID: 7986491

Claim:
A disk drive having a plurality of magnetic recording disks and at least one read/write head for writing data to and reading data from the disks, the disk drive comprising: a base; a spindle; a spindle motor attached to the base for rotating the spindle about an axis of rotation; a plurality of disks stacked on the spindle, each disk having at least one of its disk surfaces containing tracks for the storage of data; a disk separator movable axially inside the spindle for separating selected axially-adjacent disks, each pair of axially-adjacent disks defining an axial gap in the disk stack when the disks in a pair are separated; a rotary actuator on the base and rotatable about an axis generally parallel to the rotational axis of the spindle motor; a head-arm assembly comprising an arm and at least one read/write head attached to an end of the arm, the head-arm assembly connected to the rotary actuator and rotatable by the rotary actuator generally radially in the axial gaps to enable the head to access tracks on a surface of one of the axially-separated disks; a head support for supporting the head when the head-arm assembly is rotated radially outside an axial gap; and a driver connected to the rotary actuator for moving the head-arm assembly axially to enable the head-arm assembly to be rotatable in a selectable axial gap.