Patent ID: 7483349

Claim:
A method for managing a defective unit on a recording medium, the recording medium including a first management area being a temporary management area, a second management area and a data area, the data area having a spare area, the method comprising: (a) writing data written in the defective unit onto a replacement unit in the spare area if the defective unit is detected within the data area; (b) writing first management information and second management information onto the first management area, the first management information including a location of at least the defective unit and the replacement unit, and the second management information including a location of the first management information; (c) updating the first and second management information based on the steps (a) and (b) until the recording medium is to be finalized; and (d) writing, at finalization of the recording medium where data recording to the recording medium is not permitted after the finalization of the recording medium, the updated first and second management information written in the first management area onto the second management area, wherein during the writing step (d) the updated second management information is modified to include a location of the first management information written in the second management area, wherein the first management area being the temporary management area is located in a lead-in area of the recording medium.