Optical recording medium having a dummy area at leading and/or trailing positions of recording area

An information recording apparatus for recording information by means of energy beam irradiation, comprising:

• a laser beam source, an optical system which collimates and guides the laser beam, means for condensing the laser beam from the laser beam source, automatic focusing (AF) means for focusing the laser beam, means for condensing the laser beam from the laser bean source, tracking means which moves the focused laser beam spot to follow a tracking guide, a recording medium on which information is recorded in plurality of recording area by means of the laser beam, means for rotating the recording medium, signal modulating means for converting a signal to be recorded into a modulation code, means for adding at least one dummy signal to at least one of leading and trailing sides in the recording signal, recording waveform generation means for generating a recording waveform corresponding to the recording signal, recording start position control means for shifting a recording start position at random, laser driving means for driving the laser beam source in accordance with the recording waveform, means for converting the intensity change of the laser beam reflected from the recording medium into an electrical signal, means for amplifying the reproduced electrical signal, conversion-to-binary means for converting the electrical signal into a binary waveform, means for decoding the binary signal to make the decoded signal, means for reading a preformatted header signal, means for deleting the dummy signal, means for finding control data from said decoded signal, means for extracting information on the dummy data pattern from the control data, means for generating dummy data, means for storing the dummy data pattern, and means for picking up user data from the decoded signal.