Patent ID: 8693298

Claim:
A recording apparatus comprising: a light illumination and light sensing unit which is configured to illuminate an optical disc recording medium having a reference surface on which address information is recorded by formation of a position guiding element and a recording layer which is formed at a different depth position from that of the reference surface, with recording light for performing mark recording on the recording layer and light for position control for performing position control based on the position guiding element formed on the reference surface, via a common objective lens, and is configured to receive reflected light of the light for position control from the reference surface; a tracking mechanism which drives the objective lens in a tracking direction that is a direction parallel to a radial direction of the optical disc recording medium; a reference surface side tracking servo control unit which performs, by driving the tracking mechanism on the basis of a light sensing signal for the light for position control obtained by the light illumination and light sensing unit, reference surface side tracking servo control for causing an illumination spot of the light for position control to follow the position guiding element formed on the reference surface; a recording unit which performs recording on the recording layer by driving a light source of the recording light to emit light; and a control unit, wherein the control unit controls, in a state where data instructed to be recorded is to be recorded from an instructed recording start address, the recording unit to perform recording of dummy data on an area adjacent to a front side at least from the recording start address over a range of equal to or greater than the maximum spot deviation amount which is the maximum amount of a position deviation amount in the radial direction between the illumination spot of the light for position control and an illumination spot of the recording light which may occur in a state where tracking servo is performed by the reference surface side tracking servo control unit and to perform recording of the data instructed to be recorded in succession to a recorded area of the dummy data.