System for recording data on spiral track

摘要

An apparatus and method are disclosed for piecemeal recording of data on an optical disc using a spiral track format without the necessity of leaving a guard band between recordings or even providing a leader on the subsequently recorded track. A new recording is added to the end of a previously recorded track by first playing back the previous track. The tracking servo is locked to the data track and the translation stage motion is adjusted to match the spiral rate of the track. As the end of the previous track is approached, the translation stage drive is switched to a constant dc drive, the tracking servo is disabled, the tracking mirror is electronically locked to a nominal position, and the new recording begins. This operation may be repeated for each new data file to be recorded in piecemeal fashion.