A method and system of switching heads in a hard disk drive written using
an off-line STW method. In the method, first, deviations between a
reference head and each of the heads are calculated. Next, a mapping
table having the deviations between the reference head and each of the
heads is generated and stored in a memory. Thereafter, when a head
switching operation is requested, a current head is switched to a new
head to access a track whose number is the same as the track assessed by
the current head. A deviation of a track on which the head is positioned,
recorded in the mapping table, is applied to the virtual track address of
the track on which the head is positioned, thereby obtaining the physical
track address of the track on which the head is positioned. The requested
track is then accessed based on the obtained physical track address. As
described above, in the head switching method, even when disks for a hard
disk drive are written using an off-line STW method, the individual disks
can be accessed based on an identical virtual track address. Thus, the
performance of the hard disk drive is not degraded.