FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

READ-RITE PRESENTING AT THREE INVESTMENT CONFERENCES IN FEBRUARY AND MARCH

FREMONT, CA � February 2, 2001 -- Read-Rite Corporation (Nasdaq: RDRT) today announced that Alan S. Lowe, president and chief executive officer, will make corporate presentations to the investment community at three conferences in February and March.  He will be joined by Dr. Venkatesan Murali, chief operating officer of Scion Photonics Inc.

Read-Rite's presentations will be conducted at the:

• Banc of America Securities Technology Week 2001 conference, Monday, February 5, 2001, at 7:30 a.m. PST at the Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco.  The presentation will be open to all interested investors through a live web broadcast via the Internet.
• Robertson Stephens Technology Conference, Tuesday, February 13, 2001, at 10:30 a.m. PST at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco.  Robertson Stephens will make a replay of the web broadcast available via the Internet.
• Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Semiconductor & Systems Conference, Monday, March 5, 2001, at 2:00 p.m. PST at the Ritz Carlton, Laguna Niguel.  Morgan Stanley Dean Witter will make available a live web broadcast via the Internet.

During all three presentations, Lowe will review the company's operations, financial performance and discuss the company's position as a leader in the thin film magnetic recording head industry as well as provide an update on the progress being made at Scion Photonics Inc., Read-Rite�s majority owned fiber optic component and equipment manufacturing company.

Read-Rite Corporation is one of the world's leading independent manufacturers of magnetic recording heads, head gimbal assemblies (HGAs) and head stack assemblies (HSAs) for disk drives and tape drives.  The company is headquartered in Fremont, California and has operations in California, Thailand, Philippines, Japan, Singapore and South Korea.  The company's website is located at http://www.readrite.com.  Read-Rite is also the majority shareholder of Scion Photonics, Inc. which designs, develops, manufactures and sells optical communication components.  Scion's website is located at http://www.scionphotonics.com.

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