FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MILPITAS, CA -- August 5, 1999 -- Read-Rite Corporation (Nasdaq: RDRT) announced today that Craig S. Cocchi has been appointed vice president of Read-Rite's tape head business unit. In his expanded role, Cocchi reports directly to Alan Lowe, Read-Rite's president and chief operating officer.

Cocchi joined Read-Rite's tape head business unit as a staff product engineer in early November of 1993 and during his tenure has received several key engineering and management promotions including: engineering manager, strategic account manager, manager of sales and applications, senior director and subsequently, vice president. Discussing the promotion, Cyril J. Yansouni, chairman of the board and chief executive officer said, "Under Craig's leadership, the tape head business has made significant progress establishing Read-Rite as the premier MR tape head supplier worldwide. Read-Rite is now the strategic development partner of Quantum for Super DLT tape products and of Benchmark for their DLT compatible tape drives. At the same time, we have continued to expand our tape head market share in Travan tape drives as the tape head business unit continues to receive excellent reviews from its customers."

Prior to coming to Read-Rite, Cocchi was a senior heads and media engineer with the tape products group of Conner Peripherals (formerly Archive Corporation), and before that, was a research assistant for Professor Neal Bertrum at the University of California San Diego's Center for Magnetic Recording and Research. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Sociology from the University of California in San Diego, California.

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 .

This news release contains statements which include forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934, as amended, and is subject to the "safe harbor" created by those sections. These statements include, but are not limited to: the company's expectation that shipments will begin in September; and the company's expectation that its renewed relationship with Quantum will continue. The company's actual results for future periods could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to: the company may be unsuccessful in ramping HGA production for Quantum; the company may be unsuccessful in obtaining additional design wins for other Quantum desktop and enterprise programs; and the other factors described in the company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, its Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 1998 and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for the first, second and third quarters of Fiscal Year 1999 ended December 27, 1998, March 28, 1999 and June 27, 1999 respectively. Read-Rite undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of such statements.