Patent ID: 8045430

Claim:
An apparatus for managing a defective area on a recording medium of writable once type, the recording medium including a lead-in area having a defect management area and a data area having a user data area and a spare area, the apparatus comprising: a pickup configured to write/reproduce data on/from the recording medium; a servo configured to control the pickup to maintain a distance between an objective lens of the pickup and the recording medium, and to track a relevant track of the recording medium; a data processor configured to process and supply input data to the pickup for writing, or process data read from the recoding medium; a memory configured to store information associated with the recording medium; and a controller configured to operatively coupled to above components—the pickup, the servo, the data processor and the memory, and control the components so that the apparatus writes, onto a temporary management area located in the lead-in area, management information pertaining to the defective area and access information for accessing the management information, where the management information includes location information indicating locations of the defective area and a replacement area corresponding to the defective area and included in the spare area, and the access information includes location information indicating a location of the management information written in the temporary management area; performs no more defect management operation when the temporary management area is full; and when finalizing the recording medium, writes onto the defect management area the management and access information written in the temporary management area, wherein when writing the access information onto the defect management area the apparatus modifies the access information to include location information indicating a location of the management information written in the defect management area instead of the location of the management information written in the temporary management area.