Patent ID: 7215626

Claim:
An optical disk recording apparatus configured to record information on a rewritable optical disk comprising a first layer which is nearer to a laser beam's incident direction and a second layer which is farther from the laser beam's incident direction, the first layer and the second layer including a general information recording area for recording general information, the first layer further including a management information recording area for recording management information which manages general information recorded on the general information recording areas of the first and second layers, the management information recording area being adjacent to the general information recording area of the first layer, said apparatus comprising: 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 covert the information to a format suited for recording on the optical disk; an optical head configured to record the information subjected to the predetermined processing by the processing section on the optical disk rotatively driven by the motor; a general information recording section configured to record general information on the general information recording area of the first layer of the optical disk, and record general information on the general information recording area of the second layer of the optical disk when the general information recording area of the first layer becomes full; a management information recording section configured to sequentially and additively record changes in the management information on unrecorded areas within the management information recording are each time general information is recorded on the general information recording area of the optical disk; and a meaningless information recording section configured to record meaningless information on unrecorded areas within the management information recording area of the first layer of the optical disk, the meaningless information being determined to be meaningless at the time of reproduction of the optical disk.