Patent ID: 7612960

Claim:
A method for formatting data sectors on a magnetic disk having a plurality of tracks, each of said plurality of tracks being divided into a plurality of zones in a radial direction, said method comprising: formatting, on a zone basis, said data sectors in units of N tracks (N is an integer, which is 2 or more); wherein formatting, on a zone basis, said data sectors in units of N tracks (N is an integer, which is 2 or more) comprises: identifying a zone that includes a track number of a data sector from which read or write is started; identifying the number of tracks N corresponding to the zone; converting the track number into a zone-specific track number in the zone; performing modulo arithmetic of the zone-specific track number by the number of tracks N of the zone; and determining a track format of the N number of tracks from the identified zone and the result of the modulo arithmetic.