A method of operating a disk drive including providing the disk drive. The disk drive includes a disk with data tracks and an actuator with a slider including a perpendicular magnetic write head. The write head includes leading and trailing sides defining a taper angle. The write head and the actuator define a maximum skew angle with respect to the data tracks. The maximum skew angle being greater than the taper angle. The method further includes rotating the slider during operation of the disk drive to reduce a difference between the skew and taper angles for aligning the write head with the data tracks.