As recording densities increase in digital magnetic recording channels, the performances of digital detection techniques such as PRML and DFE degrade significantly due to nonlinear distortion in recording channels. The primary impediments for hgih-density recording are generally classified as nonlinear transition shift, which can be reduced substantially by the precompensation technique, and partial erasure which usually requires sophisticated nonlinear equalization techniques. In order to acheieve the highest density recording, accurate estimation of the parameters associated with these two noninear distortions is crucial. In this paper, a new estimation technique to distinguish these two different nonlinear effect using a proposed adaptive algorithm in time domain is presented. The effectiveness of the proposed adaptive approach to identify uniquely the nonlinear parameter with bias is demonstrated by computer simulation.