Dynamic information storage or retrieval – Condition indicating – monitoring – or testing – Including radiation storage or retrieval
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-21
2002-04-09
Huber, Paul W. (Department: 2651)
Dynamic information storage or retrieval
Condition indicating, monitoring, or testing
Including radiation storage or retrieval
C369S032010
Reexamination Certificate
active
06370096
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical-disc recording device such as a CD-RW drive or the like which performs recording of information on and erasing of information from an optical disc such as a CD-RW or the like on which re-recording of information can be performed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information is recorded on a compact disc (CD), which is an optical disc, in recording units called sessions. Each session is separated into three areas, i.e., a lead-in area, a program area, and a lead-out area. On the program area, information which a user actually records or reproduces is recorded in recording units called tracks or packets.
In the lead-in area, information of table of contents of tracks (TOC) is recorded.
A manner of recording in which a plurality of sessions such as those described above exist on a single optical disc is referred to as a multi-session recording manner.
Each of an appending-type compact disc (CD-R) and a re-recordable compact disc (CD-RW) has management information, for managing information of tracks, recorded on a predetermined area (Program Memory Area: PMA) thereof, in addition to the above-mentioned TOC.
As a form of the last session, there is a form called an open session in which no information has been recorded on the lead-in area and lead-out area thereof, and a form called a closed session in which information has been recorded on the lead-in area and lead-out area thereof. All the sessions but the last session are closed sessions.
Because no information has been recorded on the lead-in area of the open session, the TOC having information of tracks which belong to that session is not recorded. However, because the PMA exists, the information of the tracks in the open session can be obtained from the PMA.
The CD-RW disc is a disc on which information can be re-recorded, and the recorded information can be erased. There are various ranges to be erased in the re-recordable disc. Nevertheless, overall erasing is performed frequently.
In the related art, there is an optical-disc recording device (for example, see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 9-288823) which is provided with means for erasing information recorded on a specified area of a re-recordable optical disc such as a CD-RW or the like.
However, in an optical-disc recording device in the related art, in order to perform the overall erasing, i.e., erasing of all the information recorded on an optical disc, an erasing operation is performed over all the recording area of the optical disc from the inner side to the outer side thereof, successively. Thus, the erasing operation is performed also on an unrecorded area, i.e., an area on which no information has been recorded. As a result, an enormous amount of time is required until the overall erasing is finished.
For example, when the overall erasing is performed on an optical disc in a manner such as that described above at a double speed, on which disc 74 minutes of information can be recorded, approximately 40 minutes are required for the overall erasing.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been devised in consideration of the above-mentioned point, and an object of the present invention is to reduce the time required for overall erasing performed on a re-recordable optical disc.
In order to achieve the above-described object, the present invention provides in an optical-disc recording device that records information on and erases information from a re-recordable optical disc means for obtaining, from management information, a position of an area in which information has been recorded, performing an erasing operation on the area, and erasing the management information when overall erasing is performed on the optical disc.
In this arrangement, when the overall erasing is performed on the re-recordable optical disc, the position of each track on which information has been recorded is obtained from the management information in TOC, PMA and so forth, the erasing operation is performed on those tracks, and the management information is erased. Therefore, it is possible to prevent an unnecessary operation such as that of performing the erasing operation on an unrecorded area from being performed. As a result, it is possible to perform the overall erasing on the optical disc in a short time.
It is preferable that means be provided for, when an ending position of the area has not been recorded in the management information, searching from a starting position of the area, finding an ending position of recorded information, and performing the erasing operation from the starting position of the area to the ending position of recorded information.
In this arrangement, in a case in which the last session is the open session, and a track (area) to be processed is an incomplete track (area), only the starting address (starting position) of which has been recorded in the management information and the ending address (ending position) of which has not been recorded in the management information, a searching operation is performed from the starting position of that area, the ending position of the recorded information is found, and the erasing operation is performed from the starting position of the area to the thus-found ending position of the recorded information. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the erasing operation from being performed on an unrecorded area outside of the incomplete track. As a result, it is possible to eliminate unnecessary operation time in the overall erasing.
It is also preferable that means be provided for, when either no information has been recorded on the area or information has been only partially recorded on the area although a starting position and an ending position of the area have been recorded in the management information, searching the area and performing the erasing operation only on a part of the area, on which part the information has been recorded.
In this arrangement, in a case in which a track (area) to be processed is either a reserved track (area), on which no information has been recorded or a partially written track (area), on which information has been only partially recorded, although the starting address (starting position) and the ending address (ending position) of which have been recorded in the management information, searching is performed on the area, and, when information has been found in the area, the erasing operation is performed only on that part of the area on which the found information has been recorded. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the erasing operation from being performed on an information-unrecorded area either in the reserved track or in the partially written track. As a result, it is possible to eliminate unnecessary operation time in the overall erasing.
It is also preferable that means be provided for searching all areas for which the starting positions and ending positions have not been recorded in the management information, and, when information has been found as a result of the searching, performing the erasing operation on an area on which the found information has been recorded.
In this arrangement, all areas for which the starting addresses (starting positions) and ending addresses (ending positions) have not been recorded in the management information, are searched, and, when information has been found as a result of the searching, the erasing operation is performed on the area over which the thus-found information has been recorded. Therefore, it is possible to perform the overall erasing on the optical disc positively, on which disc information has not been recorded correctly.
It is also preferable that means be provided for searching a predetermined area immediately following a last area, a starting position and an ending position of which area have been recorded in the management information, and, when information has been found as a result of the searching, performing the erasing operation on all the recording area of the optical disc.
In this arrangement, a predeterm
Dickstein , Shapiro, Morin & Oshinsky, LLP
Huber Paul W.
Ricoh & Company, Ltd.
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