Patent ID: 8493828

Claim:
A recording/reproducing method of performing a recording/reproducing operation by using a rewritable medium having a user data area, a spare area, and a management information storage area which stores information used by the spare area, wherein DFL entry information indicating defect type information about each block is stored at least in the management information storage area, wherein, if blocks in the spare area are judged as unusable as alternative blocks during future replacement process when formatting process or replacement process is performed, the first-mentioned blocks can be registered as “unusable entries” in the DFL and, if the first-mentioned blocks were judged as defective blocks in the past and might be usable for future replacement process, the first-mentioned blocks can be registered as “SPR (spare) entries with status 2 =0100” in the DFL, and wherein assuming that a leading block address in the spare area to be used next is an NAP, in a case where recording processing is performed using the medium whose spare area contains blocks with “SPR entries with status 2 =0100”, a method of determining the NAP does not show a block address registered in the “SPR entries with status 2 =0100” and can determine a block address subsequent to the registered block address as an NAP to be used next.