A thin film magnetic transducer supported on a substrate includes a coil that terminates at pads supported on the substrate. A layer of diamond-like carbon material encapsulates the head, substrate and coil, but not the pads. A thin layer of diamond-like carbon is deposited over the exposed portions of the transducer, coil and substrate. Three techniques are described for exposing the pads including employing a photoresist mask, depositing an adhesive layer of silicon over the conductive paths but not the pads, and using a photoresist mask to etch the diamond-like carbon layer over the pads and breaking down the silicon adhesive layer with a design voltage.