The contact behavior of patterned media was examined using a 2-D plane strain finite-element model. The maximum stresses always occurred on the lower right corner of the pattern at the edge of the contact. The effects of planarization on the resulting contact stresses for different filling materials were compared. Using a filling material resulted in a decrease of the contact stresses in the patterns since it not only made the media more robust, but it also helped in relieving the contact load on the top of the patterns. In comparing harder and softer filling materials, it was found that harder materials offer a slight advantage in alleviating the stresses.