A disk drive apparatus is provided which is capable of performing recording and playback processing of an AV data stream requiring real-time characteristics and processing in an operation mode suitable for battery driving. The construction is formed in such a way that a first operation mode in which a disk rotation speed is set to be low, to which error handling in which an upper limit of an error handling time is determined as an error processing method suitable for performing recording or playback of real-time continuous information is made to correspond, and a second operation mode in which the disk rotation speed is set to be high and in which retries can be performed repeatedly as an error processing method suitable for performing recording or playback of data having high reliability, can be set. Thus, lower power consumption of real-time continuous data processing in image recording and playback by battery driving, such as in a portable video camera, is realized.