Patent ID: 7961569

Claim:
An information recording device for recording information on an information recording medium including a volume space for recording user data, a spare area containing a substitute area that can be used in place of a defective area contained in the volume space, and a defect management information area for recording defect management information used for managing the defective area, wherein the defect management information contains a plurality of defect list entries, each defect list entry containing fields that store defect location information indicating a location of the defective area, substitute position information indicating a location of the substitute area, and defect status information indicating an attribute of the defect list entry, the attribute indicating whether significant user data is present in any of the defective area and the substitute area, the device comprising: an initialization processing module, which maintains at least the defect location information of the defect management information and overwrites the defect status information to set the attribute to indicate that significant user data is not present in any of the defective area and the substitute area, in each defect list entry for which defect management has been conducted upon receiving an execution instruction for a physical reformatting of the information recording medium.