FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MOHAMAD T. KROUNBI JOINS READ-RITE AS SR. VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT ENGINEERING

MILPITAS, CA - June 5, 2000 -- Read-Rite Corporation (Nasdaq: RDRT) has appointed Mohamad T. Krounbi senior vice president of product engineering. Commenting on the appointment, Dr. Mark E. Re, senior vice president of research and development said, "The product engineering position is one of the most important and technically demanding positions we have in our research and development organization. We are pleased that Mohamad has decided to join our company as a key member of our management team." Krounbi, who brings over 12 years of head development experience with IBM and Western Digital Corporation to his new duties, will be responsible for Read-Rite's product engineering worldwide.

Immediately prior to joining Read-Rite, Krounbi was senior vice president of development for Western Digital Corporation's Desktop and Enterprise businesses where he focused on building synergy in design, methodology, and architecture between the two groups. Before that, he spent over a decade with IBM in various development positions his most recent being director of head development engineering. At IBM, Krounbi was a member of the IBM Academy of Technology and received IBM's distinguished corporate award in connection with the development of the MR head. He also has over 30 key IBM patents in recording head technology covering both design and process innovations, and his efforts in polymer science and magnetic recording have been chronicled in numerous publications.

Krounbi received a BS degree in Physics from Hagazian College in Beirut, Lebanon in 1974, and earned his MS degree in Physics from San Jose State University in San Jose, California in 1977.

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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