FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

READ-RITE QUALIFIED FOR MAXTOR CORPORATION'S NEWEST HIGH PERFORMANCE HARD DRIVE; SIXTH PROGRAM QUALIFIED WITH MAXTOR THIS YEAR

 FREMONT, CA - November 8, 2000 - Read-Rite Corporation (Nasdaq: RDRT) today announced its GMR heads are qualified on Maxtor Corporation's (Nasdaq: MXTR) newest high-performance hard drive, the DiamondMax(R) Plus 60, a 20 GB per 3.5-inch platter, 7200 rpm IDE hard drive with a storage capacity up to 60 GB.Read-Rite is already in volume production and shipping GMR heads and headstacks for this new program.

"The execution and the coordination of our engineering team with Maxtor has been exceptional, as this is the sixth program we have qualified on at Maxtor this year. It is critical that we work closely with our customers to provide them the technology and products to give them a competitive advantage," said Alan S. Lowe, president and chief executive officer of Read-Rite.

 Read-Rite added that these GMR heads, in the form of both head gimbal assemblies (HGAs) and head stack assemblies (HSAs), will be manufactured out of its ISO 9002 and 14001 qualified production facility in Thailand.

"We appreciate Read-Rite's focus and efforts in providing leading edge technology to Maxtor in the design and development of GMR heads used in our continued time-to-market leading hard drive programs," said David Beaver, vice president worldwide materials at Maxtor.

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, the Philippines, Japan and Singapore. 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 both custom and standard Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexers (DWDM) and other optical communication components to address the rapidly growing worldwide fiber-optic network expansion. The company is well funded by the backing of Read-Rite Corporation, Tyco Ventures and Integral Capital Partners. Scion's website is located at http://www.scionphotonics.com .

About Maxtor

Maxtor Corporation is a leading supplier of information storage solutions. The company's current products include the award-winning DiamondMax and DiamondMax Plus line of hard disk drives for mainstream and high-performance personal computers and consumer electronics applications, as well as the DiamondMax VL line for entry-level PCs. Maxtor also offers the MaxAttach family of network attached storage servers.

Maxtor's market leadership position has been built by consistently providing leadership products, and by delivering high levels of quality and support for its customers. More information about Maxtor and its products can be found at http://www.maxtor.com or by calling toll free 800-2-MAXTOR. Maxtor is traded on the NASDAQ under the MXTR symbol.

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 that these GMR heads, in the form of both head gimbal assemblies (HGAs) and head stack assemblies (HSAs), will be manufactured out of its ISO 9002 and 14001 qualified production facility in Thailand. 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's ability to sustain volume production cost-effectively and to maintain satisfactory yields; there may be a reduction, cancellation or rescheduling of orders from Maxtor Corporation, 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 1999 and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for the first, second and third quarters of Fiscal Year 2000 ended December 29, 1999, April 2, 2000 and July 2, 2000, respectively. Read-Rite undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of such statements.

###