Graphical Representation of Permanent Defects in Hard Disk Drives

This paper discusses the utilization of a specifically designed magnetic media defect plotting utility. This utility provides the analyst with the ability to view the physical locations of data errors on the disk drive and identify damage to magnetic media. With the failure signature understood, the analyst can now go on to isolate the underlying failure mechanism, without electrical analysis. Further, with the failure mechanism identified critical feedback can be provided to appropriate engineering areas so that the cause of failure can be limited at its source.