Optical information recording/regenerating apparatus and track scanning

Abstract

An optical information recording/regenerating apparatus includes an optical head for irradiating a regeneration light spot to a plurality of tracks on an optical recording medium simultaneously via an objective optical system. A regenerating arrangement is provided for simultaneously scanning the plurality of tracks to which the optical head has irradiated the regeneration light spot, and then reading recorded information from the plurality of tracks. An error-correcting arrangement is provided which receives the recorded information read by the regenerating arrangement for performing error correction using the error-correcting codes for the plurality of tracks. An error-correction result memory arrangement is provided for storing results that indicate whether or not the error-correcting arrangement succeeded in error correction. A control arrangement is responsive to results stored in the error-correction result memory which indicate that error correction has not succeeded for the information regenerated from at least one track among the information regenerated from the plurality of simultaneously-scanned tracks. A driving device drives the regeneration light spot and the optical recording medium relatively to each other. The control arrangement controls the drive device so that the track for which the error correction has not succeeded will be included in a scanning range.