This patent teaches a new method of roughening the surface of a magnetic recording medium in order to reduce the stiction and friction between a recording head and the medium to thereby improve mechanical reliability. During this method, the medium substrate is heated to form second phase precipitates which result in roughening of the medium surface. The medium roughness can be controlled by proper selection of the heating temperature and time and the substrate alloy. This results in improved contact-start-stop (CSS) performance of the medium. The method of the present invention allows for lower costs and potentially higher throughput than conventional texturing processes.