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.

 
Web www.patentalert.com

> Method and apparatus for performing a spiral self-servo write operation in a disk drive using an auto detection scheme

~ 00344