When an idle seek operation of a magnetic disk drive is executed under a velocity control utilizing a back electromotive force of a VCM actuator, the accuracy of the velocity control is deteriorated due to temperature variation of the VCM. To eliminate this disadvantage, a calibration of the velocity control is executed by using control information, such as a track number read from the magnetic disk medium. After the velocity control has been executed for an appointed period, by detecting the back electromotive force from the VCM actuator, an MR sense current and a power of a read write LSI are turned on for a time, positioning information on the magnetic disk medium is read out, parameters to be used for the velocity control are calibrated, and thus a stability of the control can be obtained. Hereby, because the positioning information on the magnetic disk medium is not used constantly, the power consumption during the idle seek operation is reduced, and a stable control of the movement can be obtained as well. For a portable system such as a notebook type personal computer in which a magnetic disk drive is employed, the operation is improved with respect to the use of a battery.