A method is disclosed for selecting format specific parameters in a disk drive
comprising a control system and a plurality of disk surfaces each having a surface
format for storing data, wherein at least one surface format is different than
other surface formats. The method includes initializing the disk drive for operation,
receiving a data transfer command, and selecting a disk surface for performing
data transfer operations based on the received data transfer command. The method
further includes selecting a format specific data structure corresponding to the
selected disk surface, calculating a format specific variable using the selected
format specific data structure, and performing the data transfer operations by
the control system based on the calculated variable.
