A hard disk drive with a circuit that provides a control signal to a voice coil motor to move a head across a disk of the drive. The drive includes a flex circuit that applies a bias force onto an actuator arm coupled to the head. The circuit includes a state estimator that provides a plurality of estimation errors and a bias estimator that creates a bias estimate. The bias estimate includes an average of the estimation errors and is a function of the flex circuit bias force. The bias estimate is used to create the control signal provided to the voice coil motor. The bias estimate reduces seek time during a seek routine.