A method is disclosed for manufacturing a disk drive. At least one disk is installed into a base, and a media cover is coupled to the base, wherein the media cover covers at least a portion of the disk. After installing the media cover, a head coupled to an actuator arm and a voice coil motor for rotating the actuator arm about a pivot are installed into the base. The media cover is then removed and an HDA cover is coupled to the base to form a head disk assembly (HDA). In one embodiment, the base comprises an aperture, and coupling the media cover to the base comprises inserting a pin into the aperture. In one embodiment, the aperture is also for coupling a printed circuit board to the base after removing the media cover.