FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

READ-RITE ANNOUNCES CONVERSION PRICE ON EXCHANGE OFFER
MILPITAS, CA - March 3, 2000 -- Read-Rite Corporation (Nasdaq: RDRT) today announced that the conversion price for it's pending exchange offer has been set at $4.42 per share, which is a 15% premium over the volume weighted average price of the company's common stock for the period from February 28, 2000 through March 3, 2000. The offer is scheduled to expire at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on March 8, 2000.

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 Milpitas, California and has operations in Japan, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore. The company�s home page on the world wide web can be reached at http://www.readrite.com.

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