Patent ID: 7969844

Claim:
An optical disc apparatus comprising: at least one objective lens that converges a light beam on an information layer of an optical disc; a photodetector for generating a light detection signal based on light that has been reflected from the optical disc; a tracking actuator for driving the objective lens along the radius of the optical disc; a tracking error detecting section for generating a tracking error signal based on the light detection signal; a tracking control section for driving the tracking actuator based on the tracking error signal to make the light beam follow tracks on the disc; a defect detecting section for detecting, based on the light detection signal, a portion of the optical disc where the intensity of the reflected light has decreased as a defect, thereby outputting a defect detection signal; and a tracking condition setting section for setting a tracking condition that determines how easily a tracking failure is caused by the defect, wherein if multiple types of defects that could occur on the optical disc include a first type of defect, of which the size is relatively small, and a second type of defect, of which the size is relatively large, the tracking condition setting section initially adopts, as the tracking condition, a condition on which a tracking failure is less likely to occur due to the first type of defect, but if any tracking abnormality has occurred during a read operation, the tracking condition setting section changes the tracking conditions into a one on which a tracking failure is less likely to occur due to the second type of defect.