Patent ID: 7287038

Claim:
A recording apparatus for recording on a recording medium electronic files and an index file to assist in the subsequent reproduction of a recorded file, said recording apparatus comprising: means for recording desired files on said recording medium; means for updating an index file recorded on the recording medium in response to recording of any of the files; the index file being formed from a train of slots of extract information of the flies and a folder or folders; each of the slots having set therein higher hierarchy reference information pointing to another slot of a higher hierarchy, lower hierarchy reference information pointing to a further slot of a lower hierarchy, same hierarchy reference information pointing to a still further slot of the same hierarchy and a valid/invalid flag representative of whether the slot is valid or invalid; and means for setting the valid/invalid flag of a predetermined one of the slots which is in a state set to valid with the valid/invalid flag to invalid to set the slot as a free slot while settings of the higher hierarchy, lower hierarchy and same hierarchy reference information of the slot are maintained.