Information recording medium, recording/reproducing method, and recording/reproducing apparatus

Abstract

An information recording medium, a method of recording and / or reproducing data to / from the medium, and a recording / reproducing apparatus using the medium, the medium having a data area including a user data area to record user data, and a spare area to record replacement blocks that replace defect blocks occurring in the user data area, wherein defect list entries include status information of the defect blocks and the replacement blocks, and the status information of the defect blocks in the user data area is changed, and the status information of the replacement blocks in the spare area is changed, in response to the spare area being newly allocated to re-initialize the medium.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 074,933, filed on Mar. 9, 2005, now pending, which claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 2004-37535, filed on May 25, 2004, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]The present invention relates to a disc, and, more particularly, to an information recording medium, a recording / reproducing method, and a recording / reproducing apparatus for re-initializing the medium.[0004]2. Description of the Related Art[0005]The number of defects in a re-writable information storage medium increases due to scratches, fingerprints, or dust existing on the medium during use of the medium. Defect blocks occurring while using the medium are managed by being registered as defect information, and a host or a drive system tries not to allocate data ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

This approach enables rapid re-initialization of the medium by managing defect information without extensive data recording and verification, reducing the time required for the process and preventing unnecessary read-modify-write operations.

Problems solved by technology

The number of defects in a re-writable information storage medium increases due to scratches, fingerprints, or dust existing on the medium during use of the medium.

As such, when the medium is continuously used, the number of such defect blocks will increase.

The recording of the defect blocks that are registered in the defect information or in the entire medium, and then determining whether the blocks are defective through disc verification when re-initializing the re-writable information storage medium, can be inconvenient for users because it takes too much time to re-initialize the medium.

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