Method and apparatus for cleaning an optical disk head on the basis of time accumulation

An optical disk apparatus comprising:

• motor means for rotating and driving an optical disk medium;
• optical head means for reading at least information from the optical disk medium rotated and driven by the motor means by projecting light thereon;
• first counter means provided in a volatile memory;
• second counter means provided in a non-volatile memory;
• rotation time measuring means for measuring a rotation time of the motor means from a power-on of the apparatus to a power-off thereof and, upon a subsequent power-on of the apparatus, for measuring the motor rotation time by defining a measured value of the motor rotation time from a previous power-on period as an initial value and for accumulating motor rotation time from said subsequent power-on with said initial value, wherein said rotation time measuring means counts rotation pulses which are generated from the motor means by said first counter means, and each time an accumulation time value of said first counter means reaches a predetermined unit accumulation time value, said rotation time measuring means clears said first counter means and adds said unit accumulation time value of said first counter means to an accumulation time value of said second counter means, thereby updating said second counter means;
• and
• cleaning management means for clearing said second counter means and transmitting a cleaning request signal from the optical disk apparatus to an upper apparatus to notify a necessity of cleaning the optical head means and for displaying when the accumulation time value of said second counter means reaches a predetermined value corresponding to a predetermined accumulation time at which a cleaning is necessary, and further for setting cleaning request flag information into said non-volatile memory.