-The initiation of sliding wear involves force interaction between the magnetic recording head and the recording media during sliding contact. The initial stage of the wear process has been examined and reported. Sliding wear features have been found on the surface of carbon-coated standard thin film rigid disk ~e?ia after sliding contact without significant change in the average friction force. The experimental results mdicate that the structure and properties of the carbon film could play an important role in limiting the durability and performance of the magnetic thin film rigid disks. In an attempt to understand the characteristic sliding damage on the thin film rigid media, the sliding contact stress in multilayer thin film rigid media has been analyzed using finite element method. The correlations of the sliding wear feature, structure of the carbon film and the stress state on multilayer thin film rigid media indicate that continuity and uniformity of the carbon film strongly affect the tribological performance of carbon-coated thin film rigid disk media.