Patent ID: 7898921
Filing Date: 2011-03-01
Classification: G11B

Abstract:
1. An optical disc drive for recording on and reading from an optical disc having a data recording area for recording data, and a drive information area for recording drive-specific information, wherein the drive information area comprises a plurality of clusters, each cluster comprises a plurality of sectors, each sector has capacity for storing one record of drive-specific information, and the plural records of drive-specific information are arranged in an order in which the plural records were recorded with a last-recorded record of the plural records of drive-specific information located in a first sector of a current cluster following a last sector of a previous cluster, the optical disc drive comprising: a detection device operable to detect if the optical disc was loaded; a drive device operable to read from and write to the optical disc; a memory operable to store at least a manufacturer identifier for identifying the manufacturer of the optical disc drive, a drive identifier containing at least a serial number of the optical disc drive, and recording/playback conditions including a required laser power level; and a controller operable to control the drive device, wherein the drive device is controlled by the controller, and when the optical disc is loaded accesses the drive-specific information, sets a write power level based on the drive-specific information in the last-recorded cluster; and a writing unit operable to write, at a time of recording new drive-specific information, the new drive-specific information to a first sector in a new cluster, and to write information from all sectors except a last sector in an immediately preceding cluster to remaining sectors following the first sector in the new cluster which includes the new drive-specific information, the immediately preceding cluster being recorded with all previous records of drive-specific information, wherein the new cluster is immediately next to the preceding cluster in the same drive information area in the optical disc.