According to one embodiment, a controller in a magnetic disk drive manages the influence, on a first track on a disk, of data writes to tracks within outer and inner adjacent track ranges, using first and second counters associated with the first track. The first and second counters are indicative of the numbers of data writes to tracks within the outer and inner adjacent track ranges, respectively. Based on the values of the first and second counters, the controller reads data from the first track, and rewrites the read data to the first track.