PURPOSE: To surely remove dust adhered to a recording medium and to make the rotating motion of the recording medium stable by driving the loaded recording medium by a prescribed time, stopping the medium, loading a magnetic head and driving the medium again.

CONSTITUTION: When a cartridge 20 is loaded and a recording medium 10 is driven, the recording medium 10 is rubbed by a cleaning liner 21 to remove dust adhered on the surface. A control circuit 22 stops the driving of a spindle motor 14 in a prescribed time after the cartridge 20 is loaded and further drives a head load mechanism 19 to load magnetic heads 12a, 12b onto the recording medium 10 and to drive again the spindle motor 14. Thus, before the magnetic heads 12a, 12b are made into contact with the recording medium 10, the dust adhered to the surface of the recording medium 10 is removed, and the recording medium 10 is positioned by a drive pin 17 corresponding to a drive hole with the action of the contact friction with the magnetic heads 12a, 12b while being driven and stable drive motion is obtained.