Patent ID: 8542563

Claim:
An optical disk recording method for recording information in an optical disk having a recording layer and an optically transparent layer through which a recording laser beam or a reproducing laser beam applied to the recording layer is transmitted, the method comprising the steps of: executing a test record on an output proofing area of the optical disk while a spot diameter of the recording laser beam is varied, and deriving a relationship between the spot diameter and a characteristic value representing recording quality; determining a permissible range of a variation amount of the spot diameter within which the characteristic value is acceptable on the basis of the derived relationship between the spot diameter and the characteristic value representing the recording quality; irradiating a record region of the optical disk with the recording laser beam to detect spherical aberration while executing recording; and executing aberration correction on the recording laser beam, in case the spherical aberration occurs, by driving an aberration correcting unit, wherein if, in order to execute aberration correction, the aberration correction unit needs to be driven such that the corresponding spot diameter of the recording laser beam would fall outside of the permissible range of the variation amount of the spot diameter determined in the step of determining the permissible range, the aberration correction is not executed, so that a variation amount of the spot diameter falls into the permissible range when the aberration correction is executed.