Abstract: An improved disc head for increased wear protection. The disc head includes wear members 74, 76, 92, 94, formed proximate to transducer elements of a thin film head. The wear members 74, 76, 92, 94 are formed along a portion of a lower surface of the head facing the disc surface and are formed of a relatively hard material for increasing wear resistance of the head, proximate to the transducer elements 70.

Abstract: An apparatus and associated method are disclosed for optimizing the data transfer performance of a disc drive in which user data is stored in data blocks arranged on tracks of at least one rotating disc. When a selected, uninterrupted amount of time passes since the most recently performed disc drive operation, the disc drive enters an idle mode and selectively evaluates the data blocks for uncorrected read errors. During the idle mode, at such time that a selected data block is found having an uncorrected error, a sequence of corrective operations are performed in an attempt to resolve the error and the selected data block is reallocated when at least selected one of the corrective actions are unsuccessful.