In an image recording apparatus according to this invention, an image recording media which has an image data recording area and an image data management area for managing the recording state of image data in the image data recording area and cannot be overwritten is applied, and an image data unerased area of the recording media is detected by an unerased area detection circuit when a recording mode is set by a recording mode setting REC switch, so that the image data in the detected unerased area is substantially erased by a CPU. In this state, the CPU waits for the start of an image recording operation by operating a recording trigger switch. According to this apparatus, a high-speed recording operation can be performed without missing a chance of recording even if a recording media which cannot be overwritten is applied as an image information recording media.