Patent ID: 7933182

Claim:
An apparatus for effecting at least one of recording of information on and reproducing of information from a recording medium, said apparatus comprising: (a) an optical pickup including: (i) a laser source for emitting a light beam; (ii) an objective lens for focusing the light beam emitted from the laser source onto the recording medium; and (iii) an actuator for driving the objective lens in a tracking direction of the recording medium; (b) a sled mechanism for driving the optical pickup in the tracking direction of the recording medium; and (c) a system controller including: (i) a disc identifying unit for identifying whether the recording medium is a single-layer recording medium having one recording layer or a multilayer recording medium having a plurality of recording layers; and (ii) a lens-position control unit for setting a movable range of the objective lens in the tracking direction according to a result of an identification performed by the disc identifying unit and for controlling the sled mechanism such that the objective lens is positioned in the movable range.