Method of manufacturing a perpendicular magnetic recording medium

A perpendicular magnetic recording medium comprising:

• a substrate,
• over a main surface of the substrate, a soft magnetic layer or layers;
• over the soft magnetic layer, a first orientation control layer with a hcp structure and, over the first orientation control layer, a second orientation control layer with an amorphous structure,
• over the second orientation control layer, an underlayer having a granular structure in which nonmagnetic crystal grains are grown in a columnar shape, and
• over the underlayer, a magnetic recording layer having a granular structure in which magnetic grains are grown in a columnar shape,
• wherein said first orientation control layer comprises Ti,
• said second orientation layer is formed between the first orientation control layer and the under layer and functions as a lattice spacing adjusting layer for blocking lattice spacing chains between the first orientation control layer and the underlayer, and
• said underlayer comprises one of CoCr or CoCrX (X is a nonmagnetic substance), CoCr-oxide, and CoCrX-oxide.