US Patent 7248775 Image recording apparatus

An image recording apparatus includes a CCD light-receiving element. An image signal of an object captured by the light-receiving element is stored on an image memory via a signal processing circuit, and subsequently compressed by an image compression/expansion circuit. An image file including a compressed image signal is recorded on a hard disk via a temporary storing memory. Data area of the hard disk is divided into a plurality of clusters, and the image file is recorded into each cluster. Link information indicating a link state of each cluster is recorded in a management area of the hard disk. Herein, a size of the image file is equal to or smaller than 1/N of that of the cluster.