Patent ID: 7965616

Claim:
A recording medium having a data structure for managing a data area of the recording medium, the recording medium comprising: a physical access control (PAC) cluster including information for managing logical overwriting to the recording medium, wherein the PAC cluster includes, a PAC header common to each PAC cluster; and a PAC specific information area including PAC information specific to each PAC cluster, wherein the PAC header includes, segment information identifying at least one segment area in a user data area of the recording medium, the number of the segment area identified by the segment information being less than or equal to a predetermined maximum number; and an unknown PAC rules field defining a rule used without considering the PAC information of the corresponding PAC cluster when the PAC cluster is not known to an apparatus attempting to record to or reproduce from the recording medium, the unknown PAC rules field including a logical-overwrite field indicating whether logical overwriting is allowable for the recording medium; and a defect management area having at least one defect list entry, the defect list entry including first position information for indicating a position of a defective area within the user data area, second position information for indicating a position of a replacement area to be assigned to the defective area, first status information for indicating whether the defective area is replaced with the replacement area, and second status information for indicating single clusters and pluralities of consecutive clusters included in the defective area, each cluster including a plurality of sectors.