USB Drive - Missing Folders

[rjbinney]

I have a Seagate 1TB external USB drive that I keep music, videos, and photos on. I occasionally plug it directly into a TV or Blu-Ray player's USB port to watch video (or listen to tunes).

Recently I plugged it into a hotel television - you know, one that has all the added "On Demand" and "Guest Services" interfaces plugged into it. I've done this before and suffered no consequences. (And, truth be told, there's no reason to presume that the teevee had anything to do with my issue - it's just how and when I discovered the problem).

The drive never mounted, so I unplugged it and plugged it into my Windows PC. Several directories - including all of my videos, and personal files, and a work backup - were missing. I ran whatever the automatic system check and repair is (I don't remember if that's Scan or Check), and those three directories reappeared, all intact. So, yay, I could watch The Spy Who Loved Me before my animal fries and double double got cold.

I noticed that one directory - where I download installer files - was missing. I ran Recuva to look for it, and didn't find it. Recuva turned up over 100,000 files - most overwritten - from every other directory but that one.

Today I actually noticed an additional directory ("Live Music") is missing. (It may have been missing since that first discovery, and I just didn't check it). It, too, does not show up in Recuva.

What's interesting is, both directories appear as zero-byte files in Windows Explorer. Their "Date Modified" date, though, does not match the last time I wrote or read from those files.

I noticed the directories all missing on May 1. I know I last wrote to the Live Music directory on April 26 (I emailed a file from that directory on that date).

It's just odd to me that they show up as zero-byte files - leads me to believe there may still be something there. Neither of these are absolutely crucial, but I do have some live music I'd love to be able to re-recover.

[rjbinney]

I tried double-clicking on the zero-byte "folder" and opening with a few different programs. No luck.

One thing that was interesting - to me. I noticed my "explorer.exe" file was modified on April 11 at 1634. One of the facacte folders - the "Downloads", not "Live Music" - was also modified on April 11, at 1107. I can't find anything different, odd, special, or unique about April 11 compared to other days - my Windows Update "View Update History" only goes back to May 15.

[Geek-9pm]

I have a Seagate 1TB external USB drive t...
Recently I plugged it into a hotel television - .... there's no reason to presume that the teevee had anything to do with my issue - it's just how and when I discovered the problem

The drive never mounted, so I unplugged it and plugged it into my Windows PC. Several directories - including all of my videos, and personal files, and a work backup - were missing.

You have made false assumption. You experience is not just one incident. This happens very often whenever you plug a  large USB storage  into a device that has not been certified for what you want to do.

I think the filesystem was damaged by the hotel TV set. you will not  recover most of  the stuff.  This is documented elsewhere.

[rjbinney]

I actually didn't make a false assumption - I was pointing out that to automatically presume that, by virtue of the timing of the discovery, the teevee wasn't necessarily a cause. I was trying to caution against false assumptions.

Chkdsk, etc., indicate no problems or bad sectors.

Like I said, if it's lost, it's lost. But the "date modified"s are interesting to me.

[Geek-9pm]

Pay attention. 
False assumption. Except if the TV set documentation explicit states it is safe to use any USB device with any file system. You did not even say what make and model of TV set was in the hotel. I do not believe your red the documentation.

As of this date there is no legal requirement that the TV sets will use the USB port the way you  like. As it said, the problem has been documented. Most, but not all, TV sets will do what you want. A few do not. They do what they want.

Here's one example of the TV set that does what it wants to do:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2095376/hard-drive-formatting-plugged-smart.html

[Geek-9pm]

Oh, Oh. I may have driven away the OP,  rjbinney,  by my harsh remarks.
If so,I am sorry. 

What I wanted to say is that the USB to TV thing is still in its infancy and the issues have not been resolved. Even when a million users have no trouble, some do because of the lack of high level standards for USB to TV interface. Yes, USB is a defacto standard, but the file formats used are not.

Some research shows these points of concern:
A. The user must be familiar with the documentation for the TV set.
B. Rules that work with Windows may not  work with a TV brand.
C. The TV set has a limit on the number of files.
D. The NTFS is not fully supported by a TV brand. Or not at all.
E. A brand of TV may not allow some content. This is not well documented. **
F. When the USB device is initialize d by the TV,  results are better.
Here is a reference to help identify the issues.
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-play-movies-from-usb-to-a-tv

Does anybody here have more specific information ? 

** This is NOT a good  reference, but t shows there is a potential DRM question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#DRM-free_works

[BC_Programmer]

I couldn't find any instances of users having the same problem. The problem you linked, Geek, seems to be related to TV's formatting the Drives for their own use using a non-windows file system.

The model of the devices in question would help in determining if there are known problems related to those devices causing corruption like this.


Possibly worth mentioning but I had a I had a 256MB Flash Drive that I used for ages which eventually died, and when it died, I got strange symptoms similar to those being described- Directories started to appear simply as files and leaving all their contents "orphaned", they received unusual dates, and some of them had corrupted filenames. Sounds very similar to the issues here.

I had never even considered using the USB Port on my TV but apparently I can play a number of different Video formats from them without issue. Neat.

[Geek-9pm]

Right. You can spend a lot of time trying to find a single  cause of the problem.
I have looked at a lot of articles  that touch, but do not get deep into the problem.
Here is one:
http://www.videomaker.com/article/c10/15362-video-formats-explained
But he does not say the format confusion is now over, nor does he even suggest that it ever will be.
Another:
http://www.redmondpie.com/hidden-android-secret-codes-for-samsung-htc-motorola-sony-lg-and-other-devices/
Again, not specific to the topic, but shows that TV makers  do what the want with the USB controller or any similar controller.
Users expect a drive written by Windows to be read by the smart TV and find it does not always work and they do not know why.
Link:
https://www.avforums.com/threads/will-ntfs-hdd-work-on-my-lg-tv.1713328/

I thought once you'd initialised a HDD on the TV your PC wouldn't be able to see the data. That's what my LM960 manual says. That being the case it suggests you can only use if for recording and playing back. I'd also like to be able to move files to and from.

Presently I  believe the root cease is that the USB-TV interface is not fully defined in such a way that you can isolate the trouble. On a few TV sets the USB port is used for doing updates to the TV firmware. On some others the USB device can only show photos, not videos.

As you u mention, if the USB device has had a failure, the disturbance to the file system might bring very strange things.

Also worth mention, the USB controller itself is micro controller with its own command set. Just how a TV set might have been optimized to interface with a specific brand of controller has not bee published. It might be a secret.