US Patent 9964607 Recognizing and identifying defect patterns on magnetic media

A method includes generating synthetic data related to known defect patterns on surfaces of magnetic media using parameterized rules. A classifier model is trained with the synthetic data so that the classifier model learns how to detect and identify defect patterns on magnetic media. Performance of the classifier model is validated by using real defect pattern data. The classifier model is deployed for use in identifying defective data patterns on magnetic media test specimens. The classifier may be used before or after clustering defect data points on surfaces of magnetic media.