Patent ID: 6970407

Claim:
A write protection method for a recording and/or reproducing apparatus, wherein a recording medium, including a Lead-in area, a Lead-out area and a user area, is set to a write protection state ensuring the protection of data, including the entire user data area or at least a plurality of particular data files, recorded on the recording medium from unwanted overwriting or erasing when the finalization for writing on the Lead-in area and the Lead-out area has been completed, comprising: checking the state of the recording medium; prohibiting writing of data on the recording medium when the state of the recording medium is a write protection state; determining whether the recording medium is positioned in a case; if the recording medium is installed in the case, checking whether the case is set to a write protection state; and if the state of the recording medium checked in said checking of the state of the recording medium does not match the write protection state of the case, informing a user of the difference.