
7 Magnetic recording
principles and methods
The basic principle of recording on the surface of a disk,
whether hard or floppy, is similar to that of recording
on audio tape. A head, consisting of a small coil on a
ferro-magnetic armature, is positioned either in contact
with the surface of the medium or very close to it. This
head, having a dual role, is termed the read/write head.
During the write operation it carries a current (I
w
in Fig-
ure 7.1) so as to produce local areas of magnetisation in
the surface of the magnetic medium as the latter passes
beneath it. These are known as bit ceils, as each stores
one binary digit, or bit, of information ...