Method and apparatus for managing a defective area on an optical disc

The present invention relates to a write-once recording medium (21) having a lead-in area, a data area having a user data area and one or more spare areas, and an outer zone, the recording medium (21) including a plurality of defect management areas located in the lead-in area and the outer zone for storing defect management information when the recording medium (21) is to be finalized, the one or more spare areas being used for a replacement writing, the recording medium (21) comprising: a temporary defect list area for storing defect list information for a defective area detected in the data area; a navigation pointer pointing to the defect list information written in the temporary defect list area; and location information indicating a next available location of each spare area for a successive replacement writing. Furthermore, the present invention relates to an apparatus for managing storage of defect management information onto a write-once recording medium (21) and an apparatus for managing reproduction of defect management information from a write-once recording medium (21).