Patent ID: 8072853

Claim:
A method for managing a recording medium, the recording medium including a non data area having a final defect management area and including a data area having a user data area and a spare area, the method comprising the steps of: recording a defect list for managing a defective area existing on the data area onto one or more recording-units of a temporary defect management area allocated to at least one of the non data area and the spare area, and recording position information of the defect list onto the temporary defect management area, the position information containing a plurality of defect list pointers, wherein one or more of the plurality of defect list pointers respectively indicate a position of the one or more recording-units containing the defect list, and wherein other defect list pointers of the plurality of defect list pointers corresponding to recording-units which do not contain the defect list are set to a value of 0; and if a recording-unit among the one or more recording-units is defective, recording an update defect list being recorded on the defective recording-unit onto another recording-unit of the temporary defect management area, and recording updated position information onto the temporary defect management area, the updated position information containing a defect list pointer which is changed to indicate a position of the another recording-unit instead of a value of 0 if the another recording-unit contains the updated defect list.