Information recording method, information recording apparatus, information reproducing method and information reproducing apparatus

When you try to manage the defective clusters present in the spare area in the defect entry, there is a DFL problem size also becomes automatically increases as the spare area size increases with such multilayered. Information recording medium of the present invention has a pointer information indicating a position available for the next corresponding to the spare area each, and put restrictions on the use direction of the spare area. Further comprising a defect entry indicating a defective cluster in the spare area on the DFL. Accordingly, even if the size of the spare area 15 is increased, the size of DFL21 can be suppressed to compact. The physical even after reformatting, can recognize that it is a defect with respect to the defective clusters in the spare area 15, and controls it to not re-allocated as a replacement cluster (not used) so.