Optical data recording and reproducing apparatus

An optical data recording and reproducing apparatus for recording digital data in a recording track on an optical recording disc having an address signal region, a sector address region for addressing sectors of said recording track and a data recording region, and for reproducing the digital data from said optical recording disc, comprising:

• a light source,
• light illuminating means for condensing an output light beam from said light source to produce a condensed output light beam having a very small diameter and for illuminating said optical recording disc with said condensed output light beam,
• recording-reproducing means for recording and reproducing said digital data by a recording light beam and a reproducing light beam from said light illuminating means, respectively,
• dropout detecting and inspecting means for scanning said data recording region with said reproducing light beam to detect a presence of a dropout therein, inspecting a condition of a detected dropout, and producing an output signal upon determining a presence of a dropout which is determined to give rise to an error after a demodulation of a signal reproduced by said recording-reproducing means,
• recording-prohibited sector detector means for producing an output signal identifying a recording-prohibited sector where recording is prohibited responsive to said output signal from said dropout detecting and inspecting means,
• recording-prohibited sector memory means for storing a sector address of said recording-prohibited sector in response to the output signal of said recording-prohibited sector detector means at least until recording of said digital data in said recording track on said optical recording disc is begun,
• comparator means for comparing the sector address of said recording-prohibited sector stored in said recording-prohibited sector memory means with a sector address read constantly from said optical recording disc, and
• recording output prohibiting means for prohibiting an output of the recording light beam from said light illuminating means in response to a coincidence output signal from said comparator means and holding said digital data to be recorded until the next sector is encountered on said optical recording disc.