Patent 7584212 was granted and assigned to Sanyo on September, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A digital camera (10) includes a CPU (46). When a power source is turned on, the CPU (46) determines an available area of a recording destination on the basis of an FAT recorded on a magneto-optical disk (44). Compressed image data created on the basis of an operation of a shutter button (48) is recorded on the determined available area. When succeeding in recording, the FAT is renewed. When failing in recording due to a defect of the magneto-optical disk (44), a message is displayed on a monitor (28). When a set key (50) is operated after displaying the message, a write protection is set on the magneto-optical disk (44).