A disk drive and method are provided for controlling seeking of a transducer that is adjacent to a rotatable data storage disk in a disk drive. The disk drive includes an actuator for positioning the transducer relative to the disk, the method comprising. The actuator is controlled to move the transducer toward a target track on the disk during an initial phase of a seek mode during which the transducer is primarily accelerated toward the target track. During a settle phase of the seek mode which follows the initial phase the actuator is controlled to settle the transducer onto the target track. An initial position, an initial velocity, and an initial acceleration of the transducer are determined at a phase switch time at about when control of the actuator switches from the initial phase to the settle phase of the seek mode. Feed-forward control information is generated based on the determined initial position, initial velocity, and initial acceleration of the transducer. The actuator is controlled responsive to the feed-forward control information to settle the transducer onto the target track during the settle phase of the seek mode.