A magnetic recording apparatus includes: a magnetic disk; a drive device; a magnetic disk control device; a buffer; and a flag management table. The buffer reads data of a specific block unit from a designated read range on the magnetic disk. The flag management table stores a pointer indicating the read location of the buffer for data of each of the block units and a management flag for the pointer. The magnetic disk control device sets the management flag of the pointer corresponding to a given block unit when the data of the given block unit is read to the buffer.