According to one embodiment, a method of manufacturing a magnetic recording medium includes forming a magnetic recording layer, an oxidation inhibiting layer, a hard mask layer includes carbon on a substrate, coating the hard mask layer with a resist, transferring patterns of protrusions and recesses to the resist by imprinting to form resist patterns, sequentially performing etching of the hard mask layer using the resist patterns as masks, etching of the oxidation inhibiting layer, and etching and/or magnetism deactivation of the magnetic recording layer to form patterns of the magnetic recording layer, and sequentially performing stripping of the resist patterns, stripping of the hard mask layer and stripping of the oxidation inhibiting layer, in which ion beam etching is used for stripping the oxidation inhibiting layer.