Information recording/reproducing apparatus for writing on and reading from a rewritable optical disk have tracks divided into a plurality of sectors

Claim 1

An information recording/reproducing apparatus for writing on and reading from a rewritable optical disk having tracks divided into a plurality of sectors, said sectors each being a unit of data writing and reading, comprising: an optical head for following a target track while emitting a laser beam such that said laser beam focuses on said target track, thereby writing on and reading from said optical disk; a track search means for searching said target track and for moving said optical head to said target track; a recording and reproducing means for actuating said optical head such that said optical head writes on and reads form said optical disk, said recording and reproducing means including a servo circuit for outputting a tracking error signal; a track address reading means for reading out an address of a sector on a track being followed by said optical head and for outputting a regenerative address signal indicative of said address of said sector; a track-jump detection means for, upon receipt of said tracking error signal from said recording and reproducing means, comparing said tracking error signal with a predetermined threshold and for outputting a track-jump detection signal and a recording halt signal based on a comparison result, said track-jump detection signal being indicative of an occurrence of a track jump while said optical head is writing data on said optical disk; a track-jump address storage means for, in response to said track-jump detection signal from said track-jump detecting means, storing said regenerative address signal from said track address reading means and for outputting an address of a track-jump occurring sector wherein said track jump has occurred; a recording halt means for, upon receipt of said recording halt signal from said track-jump detection means, halting said recording and reproducing means so as to halt data writing by said optical head; a buffer means for temporarily storing data to be written on said optical disk after said truck-jump has occurred; a first address generation means for generating addresses of said buffer means to which data to be written on said optical disk are written; a second address generation means for generating addresses of said buffer means which are accessed so that data is read therefrom; and a control means for, upon receipt of said track-jump detector signal from said track-jump detection means, controlling said second address generation means to generate an address of said buffer means based on said address of said track-jump occurring sector outputted from said track-jump address storage means, thereby allowing said recording and reproducing means to actuate said optical head to write data stored at the address of said buffer means generated by the second address generation means on said track-jump occurring sector and the following consecutive sectors.