Reliability of a hard disk drive depends on the head disk interface (HDI) characteristics. Particularly, the disk media and the head can be damaged due to contact between the two components during operation. The contact may occur due to particles being introduced into the disk/slider interface or due to direct contact between the slider and the disk. Such contacts may be induced by external vibration or abnormal operation of the HDI. In this work the characteristics of scratches generated on the disk surface were investigated. The scratches were generated by impacting the hard disk. The type of scratches was analyzed with respect to their shape and dimensions.