A durable wear-resistant coating consists of an atomically mixed layer on the surface of the head or media which is developed by bombardment of the surface with energetic C ions with optimized parameters. This mixed layer is covered with a hard DLC overcoat. This mixed interlayer is able to strongly bond the overcoat to the head or media substrate and improve the tribological properties of the overcoat. In this method a very thin layer of a carbide former material can be used as an interlayer before bombarding the surface with C ions which provides a composite interlayer containing C and species from interlayer and substrate. This composite interlayer bonds the DLC overact to the ceramic substrate of the head or the metallic substrate of the media. This interlayer by itself is protective enough to protect the head media of the hard drives against wear and corrosion.