Patent ID: 8120998

Claim:
An optical disk drive comprising: an objective lens for converging a light beam onto an optical disk that includes an information storage layer, the optical disk having a blue laser format; an optical disk motor for rotating the optical disk; an actuator for moving the objective lens perpendicularly to the information storage layer of the optical disk; an actuator driving section for moving the objective lens at a predetermined velocity by controlling the operation of the actuator; disk position detecting means for detecting a position of the objective lens, when the focal point of the light beam is located right on the information storage layer of the optical disk, as a disk position; and moving velocity setting means for setting a moving velocity of the objective lens to a first value until the objective lens reaches a velocity switching point, which is determined by reference to the disk position, while the objective lens is being moved toward the optical disk to carry out a focus finding operation and for setting the moving velocity of the objective lens to a second value that is lower than the first value once the objective lens has passed the velocity switching point, wherein before the focus finding operation is started, the disk position detecting means gets the objective lens moved perpendicularly to the information storage layer of the optical disk by the actuator, thereby determining the disk position, and wherein the velocity switching point is determined before the focus finding operation is started, and set farther away from the optical disk than the disk position, and wherein the optical disk is not being rotated by the optical disk motor while the disk position detecting means detects the disk position.