New Tv Reading Files Deleted On Hdd....wtfff?

[Deza3000]

Hey guys,

Just bought a new sony bravia w800b. I connected my portable HDD to watch a movie, and as i was loading the files, the TV displayed video files which i deleted months ago. (FYI video files = TV shows, nothing dirty ). I checked on my computer to see if the files are present somewhere else, however found nothing, I only have 4 folders in the whole drive, it is pretty much empty. I have no clue how the TV is reading my old deleted tv Shows, and whats even more weird is that, the files ACTUALLY WORK! I watched a few full episodes of big bang theory, listed to 5 of my 10000s playlists, all of which should not even be in existence right now! All those media files equate to 30-50gb worth of space, however ive only used up 3GB. Very confused, does anyone have any insight to what might be happening? Does the TV somehow read media file dropping ?? Is there a cache of some sort in the HDD itself containing old deleted files?

Cheers.

Note: HDD brand is Asus, 250gb over 8 years old.

[Plattsy]

i have this issue too.

no idea where the cache is, but i stream via the wifi and homegroup to the tv.

however the tv will show files i deleted 6 months ago from the computer. very strange.

[Deza3000]

i have this issue too.

no idea where the cache is, but i stream via the wifi and homegroup to the tv.

however the tv will show files i deleted 6 months ago from the computer. very strange.

Exactly it. No clue where these files are. Do HDDs feature some sort of recovery drive ? TV might be reading the clips from that.

[gumflapper]

From my understanding, when a pc deletes a file it only erases the info to locate the file on the HDD. It doesn't actually erase the physical information on the drive itself. It's not until you either write over the data with other information or do a secure erase with specialised software that the "deleted" content is gone. This is how software recovery works. It scans the physical sectors and reads the information off the HDD directly. I can only assume that the TV is reading the data directly from the disk and because you have not written over it yet, it can be read.

[Deza3000]

From my understanding, when a pc deletes a file it only erases the info to locate the file on the HDD. It doesn't actually erase the physical information on the drive itself. It's not until you either write over the data with other information or do a secure erase with specialised software that the "deleted" content is gone. This is how software recovery works. It scans the physical sectors and reads the information off the HDD directly. I can only assume that the TV is reading the data directly from the disk and because you have not written over it yet, it can be read.

Wow actually never thought of it that way, makes sense though.

[Plattsy]

you learn something new every day

[GH05T]

HAHA i wonder how many people have gotten in trouble with their new familly tv

[dontyellpl0x]

If you change the pc settings to view hidden files and folders in control panel you might be able to see the deleted content. I know when I delete content on my external drive it goes into a "hidden" '.trash' folder.

[niZmO_Man]

I think Sony uses a linux based OS for their smart stuff, so it can pick up the 'deleted' files; Windows would read some sort of file location table. Since the location info is gone (as stated above), it doesn't know those files exist.

My AVG Free has a shredding function for the recycle bin, which I assume overwrites the sectors.

[Deza3000]

Hmm thats pretty interesting, explains why a full format takes a couple hours while a quick format takes 1 minute. Must be that file location table thing just being erased rather than actually cleaning the HDD.

and LOL @ the family TV comment, definitely a worry, dad comes home chucks in the HDD and bam! "daddy why are those men on that lady"

[GH05T]

i used to have a program which totally wiped a disk, basically it would wipe all info, then write at binary level all 0 then all 1 then clear again so all data is over written.

[Birds]

Once data is written to a hard drive it cannot be removed, only overwritten. Thus even the most thorough of disk formatting serves only to write over each bit with gibberish binary.

File recovery services from computer stores / techs are pretty much based on the assumption you've only deleted the file from windows.