Patent ID: 8311398

Claim:
A recording medium initialization apparatus for initializing a recording medium, comprising: an initializing unit to initialize a storage area of the recording medium; and a recording unit to record a user data file and a management information file of the user data file based on a predetermined standard, wherein the initializing unit includes a physical formatting unit configured to perform physical formatting on the recording medium, a file system creation unit configured to create a file system on the basis of a predetermined file system format in the storage area of the recording medium after physical formatting is performed, the file system having a data layout including a partition for recording user data files, a metadata partition included in the partition for recording metadata management information of the user data files, and a logical volume integrity sequence (LVIS) located outside the partition and identifying the number of files and available area on the recording medium, and a directory structure creation unit configured to create, based on the predetermined standard and in the storing area where the file system is created, a directory structure to record both the user data file and the management information file of the user data file, and record, in the metadata partition, an information control block (ICB) containing information indicating the recording location where real data is recorded with regard to each directory contained in the directory structure defined by the predetermined standard, wherein the directory structure creation unit records metadata formed of a collection of file identification information descriptors (FIDs) which contain information indicating the recording location of the information control block of a directory stored directly below one of the each directory as the real data or a file, and the LVIS is recorded based on the recording of ICBs and FIDs of all the directories in the metadata partition.