Embodiment of the invention improve the productivity of a magnetic disk drive that controls the flying height of a magnetic head by use of a heater. According to an embodiment, in a method for manufacturing a magnetic disk drive that writes/reads information to/from a magnetic disk medium by use of a magnetic head including a heater adapted to control the flying height, the read and write performance of the magnetic head is tested; a heating condition used at the time of heating by the heater is determined on the basis of the test results; and a control parameter that specifies the amount of heating by the heater in the determined heating condition is determined.