Magnetic disk apparatus having recording heads for opposite disk surfaces which are offset from each other

A disk drive for storing representations of data, said disk drive comprising:

• a housing;
• at least one disk having an axis of rotation and a first surface and a second surface, said disk comprising a rigid nonmagnetic substrate and at least one layer of magnetic material covering said first and second surfaces, said disk rotatably mounted to the housing;
• and
• an actuator assembly rotatably mounted to said housing, said actuator assembly further including:
• at least two arms;
• and
• a slider attached to each of said arms, said slider including a head for reading representations of data from said disk and for writing representations of data to said disk, one slider positioned over said first surface of said at least one disk, another slider positioned over said second surface of said at least one disk so that the sliders pass the first and second surfaces of the disk, said sliders positioned so that the first head and the second head are shifted with respect to a line normal to said first and second surface of the disk in a direction radial to the axis of rotation of said disk, said sliders being positioned such that a line normal to one of the first or second surfaces of the disk will intersect the slider with the first head and the slider with the second head.

A method for minimizing electromagnetic coupling and crosstalk between a first magnetic head and a second magnetic head in a disk drive including at least one rigid disk for storing representations of data on each of a first and second surface of the disk positioned to read or write data on the two surfaces of a disk, said magnetic heads attached to sliders, said method comprising the steps of:

• positioning a first slider over the first surface of the disk;
• positioning a second slider over the second surface of the disk, wherein said step of positioning a second slider positions said second slider shifted with respect to the first slider a distance d so that the magnetic heads within the sliders are misaligned with respect to a line perpendicular to one of the two surfaces of the disk, said first and second heads having a dimension in the direction of the shift, said distance d being less than the dimension of said heads in the direction of the shift;
• and
• fixing the relative position of said first and second sliders so that during operation of said disk drive, the relative position of said sliders remain constant.