To drive a semiconductor laser by many valued semiconductor laser driving currents with a simple circuitry of a low band without setting the power in the auto laser power control region of an optical recording medium.

Test light emission is executed in the test zone or manufacture zone region disposed over ≥100 tracks on the inner and outer circumferences exclusive of a predetermined user area. The setting of the light power for the test light emission is executed successively at output currents Iw0, Iw1, Iw2. Optimum output current values are set in a W0 D/A converter 11, W1D/A converter 12 and W2 D/A converter 13 from a CPU 4, and the current setting of a W0 constant current circuit 15, W1 constant current circuit 16 and W2 constant current circuit 17 is executed, at a write time (write mode). Next, An LD driving current is supplied to an LD 1 by turning switches SW4, SW5, SW6 on and off according to the write data.