Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Takayuki Sakabayashi

Chikashi Inokuchi

Yuichi Kamioka

An optical disk drive reads and/or writes data from/on an optical disk on which a pre-pit has been formed on at least one side edge of a data recording track. The disk drive includes light-emitting element, photodetector section, subtractor and amplifier. The light-emitting element emits a light beam and irradiates the track with the light beam. The photodetector section receives and detects the light beam reflected from the track, thereby generating first and second detection signals, carrying information about shapes of the track at the one and the other side edges thereof, respectively, based on the reflected light beam. The subtractor generates a differential signal representing a difference between the first and second detection signals. The amplifier amplifies the differential signal, output from the subtractor, by a variable amplification factor. The optical disk drive detects the pre-pit in accordance with the amplified differential signal.

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Ibaraki, Japan

Takayuki Sakabayashi