Method for managing a defect in an optical disk by assigning logical

Abstract

A method for managing a defect in an optical disk employed in a recording/reproducing apparatus. The optical disk includes a data area and a preliminary area. Further, the data area includes sectors for storing data and the preliminary area includes alternate sectors for defective sectors occurring after initialization of the optical disk. In the optical disk, physical addresses are assigned to all of the sectors of the data area and the preliminary area in an ascending order. In contrast, logical addresses are assigned to the sectors in an ascending order skipping the defective sectors detected at the time of the initialization and the sectors of the preliminary area. The method for managing a defect in an optical disk comprises the steps of constructing a table in which a cumulative number of defective sectors detected at the time of the initialization of the optical disk and being present between a starting physical address of the optical disk and a sector subsequent to a defective sector is used as the logical address of the sector subsequent to the defective sector and of converting the logical address of a sector into the physical address thereof by using the table. Thereby even when a defective sector occurs in the optical disk, the logical address of a sector can easily be converted into the physical address thereof.