A data recording apparatus is provided which has a recording/reproduction head (3) for recording data on or reproducing the data from a recording medium, a moving mechanism (92, 93) for moving the recording/reproducing head (3) on the recording medium, an error detectors (78,85) for detecting an error in accordance with a signal from the recording/reproduction head (3) in the recording mode, and a control section (21) for detecting that an access to a recording start track cannot be made by the recordingl reproduction head (3) for recording data, for determining a track number in the vicinity of the recording start track by the recording/reproduction head (3) in accordance with a detection result, and for controlling a moving mechanism (92, 93) to move the recording/reproduction head (3) to a target track ahead of a predetermined number of tracks which correspond to a distance between the target track and the recording start track without performing recording of data on the predetermined number of tracks in accordance with a detection result from a tracking error detector (78, 85).