Methods and apparatuses for writing spiral servo patterns on a disk surface are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method is provided to write servo information onto a disk surface in spiral patterns in a non-sequential manner. In another embodiment, a thermal warm-up regimen is performed prior to writing spiral patterns onto the disk surface. In another embodiment, a reference track is used to position a write head when writing spiral patterns onto the disk surface. By using one or more of the above embodiments, the affects of thermal and/or mechanical changes may be reduced when writing spiral patterns.