Patent ID: 7106549

Claim:
A magnetic recording and reproducing apparatus comprising: a magnetic recording medium having a recording track available for recording by a record magnetic field, and guard bands provided on opposite sides of the recording track and being disabled for recording by the record magnetic field; a magnetic head including a first magnetic detection region and a second magnetic detection region which are offset in a lengthwise and widthwise directions of the recording track and have an overlapping part in the widthwise direction, and a write region provided in the lengthwise direction from the magnetic detection regions, the write region applying the recording magnetic field to the magnetic recording medium, a region covered by at least one of the first and second magnetic detection regions having a width in the widthwise direction of the recording track, the width being wider than a width of the recording track; a compensating circuit that compensates phase error of signals detected in the first and second magnetic detection regions corresponding to the offset in the lengthwise direction of the recording track between the first and second magnetic detection regions and outputs as a first and second reproducing signals; a record signal extracting portion to extract the information recorded on the recording track on a basis of a sum of the first and second reproducing signals; an error signal extracting portion to extract an error signal of the magnetic head relative to the recording track on a basis of a difference between the first and second reproducing signals; and a servomechanism to correct positional relation between the recording track and the magnetic head on a basis of the error signal.