In recent years the recording density of hard disks has increased significantly largely due to the decreasing flying height. As a result of decreased flying height, the reliability issue become more critical. In this work the relationship between hard disk surface damage and data loss was investigated by using an actual hard disk drive. The purpose of this research was to identify the key factor which leads to data loss. It was shown that data loss is directly related to the physical damage of the Co-magnetic layer and there was no data loss when only carbon protective coating was damaged by the diamond tip.