Optical disk recognizing method and optical disk recording/reproducing apparatus applying it therein

Within an optical disk recording/reproducing apparatus, in which a beam spot is irradiated upon an optical disk loaded therein, to obtain a reflection light obtainable therewith, and thereby conducting recording or reproducing of information upon an information recording surface of the optical disk, a microcomputer (mu-computer) 9 for controlling the operation of the apparatus executes a predetermined process by considering the optical disk loaded into the apparatus to be an optical disk, which is loaded previously, executes a retry process when determined that the optical disk loaded into the apparatus is not the optical disk loaded into the apparatus previously, as a result of the process mentioned above, executes a process for recognizing kind of the optical disk inserted, and memorizes information of the kind of the optical disk inserted into said apparatus, which is obtained in the recognizing process mentioned above, thereby shortening the startup time of the apparatus, as a whole thereof.