To decide the position of a pickup during the interruption or the like of information recording/reproducing in/from an optical information recording medium so as to reduce the loss of a recording capacity.
During the interruption of information recording/reproducing in/from an optical information recording medium 1, the optical information recording medium 1 is irradiated with a position control light for controlling its own position to the optical information recording medium 1 by a pickup. When the irradiation area 40 of the position control light is included in a write enable area 56, the sensitivity of the write enable area 56 to a light used for information recording/reproducing is lost. Thus, in one of saturation areas 52a, 52b in which information is not recorded any more, and a sensitivity loss permission area 54 permitting a sensitivity loss nearest the irradiation area 40, the position of the pickup is decided to be irradiated with the position control light, and the pickup is moved.
So Ishii
Juno Aoki