Skip to content

Specifying Tracks

Keir Fraser edited this page Apr 27, 2023 · 4 revisions

The read, write and erase commands can all act on a specified set of disk tracks. The format specifier is presented by --tracks= and can contain any of the following elements:

  • c=<set>: Set of cylinders to access
  • h=<set>: Set of heads (sides) to access
  • step=[0-9]: Number of physical head steps between cylinders (default 1)
  • hswap: Physical drive heads are swapped
  • h[01].off=[+-][0-9]: Physical cylinders of the specified head are offset by the specified amount (used for flippy-modded 5.25" drives only!)

<set> is a comma-separated list of integers and integer ranges.

For example:

  • c=0-7,9-12:h=0-1: Accesses both sides of cylinders 0-7 and 9-12.
  • c=0-39:h=0:step=2: Read a single-sided 40-cyl disk in an 80-cyl drive.
  • c=0-79:h=0:hswap: Treat physical side 1 as a second single-sided image on a double-sided disk.
  • c=0-79:h=0,1:h1.off=-8: Read both sides of a C64 flippy disk, including half tracks, in one pass.