A recording-medium controlling apparatus that performs a read-access and a write-access of a recording medium in response to access request from a higher-level apparatus, detects a read error that occurs at a time of the read access, and performs a replacement processing, includes an error detecting unit that tries a plurality of the read accesses to an error location on the recording medium to detect whether the read error recurs a plurality of times; and a replacement processing unit that performs, when the error detecting unit detects that the read error recurs a plurality of times, a replacement processing for the error location.