Patent ID: 6996049

Claim:
An optical disk recording apparatus configured to record information on a rewritable optical disk having a general information recording area for recording general information and a management information recording area for recording management information which manages general information recorded on the general information recording area, said apparatus comprising: a motor configured to rotatively drive the optical disk; a processing section configured to perform predetermined processing with respect to information to be recorded on the optical disk, and convert the information to a format suited for recording on the optical disk; and an optical head configured to record the information which has been subjected to the predetermined processing by the processing section on the optical disk rotatively driven by the motor; a meaningless information recording section configured to write meaningless information, which is determined to be meaningless at the time of reproduction of the optical disk, in all unrecorded areas without leaving unused areas, when an unrecorded area exists in the management information recording area of the optical disk; and a management information recording section configured to sequentially and additively record changes in said management information on said management information recording area by rewriting said meaningless information each time general information is recorded in said general information recording area of said optical disk.