An optical disc apparatus according to the present invention includes a disc type recognizing section for determining whether the optical disc loaded is a first type, of which the number of information storage layers is less than a setting T (where T is an integer that is greater than two), or a second type, of which the number of information storage layers is equal to or greater than the setting T. Depending on whether the optical disc loaded has turned out to be the first type or the second type, the apparatus determines the read/write preprocessing (such as whether a fingerprint detection process needs to be performed or not).