Patent ID: 7058759

Claim:
A method for configuring a disk drive to support a targeted storage format for at least one surface of a disk on the disk drive, wherein the disk drive comprises at least one disk and a disk drive control system for executing a first firmware code image corresponding to the targeted storage format, the method comprising: installing a first code portion in the disk drive, the first code portion comprising a plurality of format-specific sub-portions wherein each sub-portion corresponds to a specific storage format; installing a second code portion in the disk drive, wherein the second code portion is executable by the disk drive control system for each of the format-specific sub-portions; receiving a first format-selection parameter by the control system, wherein the first format-selection parameter relates to a selected first format-specific sub-portion and causes the control system to configure the first firmware code image from the second code portion and the selected first format-specific sub-portion; and initializing the control system to execute the configured first firmware code image wherein the execution configures the control system to support the targeted storage format.