A method of controlling an optical drive to perform a braking process in a layer jump process. The optical drive has a vertically movable pickup head, a preamplifier, a controller, and a low pass filter. The controller receives a focus error signal produced by the preamplifier to produce a focus control signal, and sends the focus control signal to the low pass filter to produce a layer distance balancing signal, so that the pickup head is controlled by the layer distance balancing signal to perform the layer jump process. The method of the present invention comprises the steps of: performing the braking process in accordance with a braking signal and the layer distance balancing signal when the focus error signal reaches a braking start point; and performing a closed-loop focusing control process when the focus error signal reaches a closed-loop focusing control point.