3.5.7 Supplying multiple descriptions for a drive

It is possible to supply multiple descriptions for a drive. In that case, the descriptions are tried in order until one is found that fits. Descriptions may fail for several reasons:

1. because the geometry is not appropriate,
2. because there is no disk in the drive,
3. or because of other problems.

Multiple definitions are useful when using physical devices which are only able to support one single disk geometry. Example:

  drive a: file="/dev/fd0H1440" 1.44m
  drive a: file="/dev/fd0H720" 720k

This instructs mtools to use /dev/fd0H1440 for 1.44m (high density) disks and /dev/fd0H720 for 720k (double density) disks. On Linux, this feature is not really needed, as the /dev/fd0 device is able to handle any geometry.

You may also use multiple drive descriptions to access both of your physical drives through one drive letter:

  drive z: file="/dev/fd0"
  drive z: file="/dev/fd1"

With this description, mdir z: accesses your first physical drive if it contains a disk. If the first drive doesn’t contain a disk, mtools checks the second drive.

When using multiple configuration files, drive descriptions in the files parsed last override descriptions for the same drive in earlier files. In order to avoid this, use the drive+ or +drive keywords instead of drive. The first adds a description to the end of the list (i.e. it will be tried last), and the first adds it to the start of the list.