Patent ID: 7505384

Claim:
An optical recording and reproducing apparatus for recording/reproducing information on/from a write-once-read-many optical recording medium, comprising: additional area reservation means for reserving an additional area for laser power adjustment in an area other than a laser power adjustment area formatted in advance on the optical recording medium; laser power adjustment means for performing the laser power adjustment with reference to a state of recording and reproduction of predetermined information with respect to one of the laser power adjustment area and the additional area; and management information recording means for generating management information that manages recording addresses of recording information files and recording the management information onto the recording medium, and judgment means for judging whether a changing degree of a parameter expressing a recording environment with respect to a value of the parameter at a time of the laser power adjustment performed last time exceeds a predetermined threshold value, wherein the additional area for laser power adjustment is added into a user data area, wherein when the laser power adjustment is performed using the additional area, the management information recording means generates the management information by logically deleting the additional area from a management file, and wherein when a result of the judgment by the judgment means is positive, the laser power adjustment means performs the laser power adjustment.