An apparatus and method are disclosed for minimizing damage to a disc drive during head switching operations. The disc drive comprises a plurality of magnetic recording surfaces to and from which data are transferred using read/write heads, each head utilizing the application of a bias current during operation. To switch from a presently selected head to a target head, the disc drive determines a first value indicative of the magnitude of a bias current for the presently selected head and a target bias current to be applied to the target head. When the second value is greater than the first value, the disc drive switches from the presently selected head to the target head and then applies the target bias current; conversely, when the first value is greater than the second value, the target bias current is applied to the presently selected head and then the disc drive switches from the presently selected head to the target head.