Keeping them clean!

[willmoodom]

Quick question for you guys..I recently replaced both 20/80GB hd's with brand new 80/169GB hd's. My issue is keeping the downloaded video OFF the main hd. I haven't done any conversions since the hd install but now I got an itch. Can I view movies FROM external HD? Will there be leftover material on my internal hd after viewing? What I want is to view these movies without using my internal hd. Because once it's on there, there's nothing short of a 48hr dod wipe that will get it off and even that's not guaranteed. Before the swap, i noticed that after viewing movie cd on the computer that it left trace material. Will the same arise viewing movie stored on external hd. Thanks

[kadzbiz]

Good question. I've watched plenty of movies from my external HD and never noticed any residual stuff go onto my HD, but perhaps I'm not looking in the right places. I'd like to know the answer too.

[poisondeathray]

Watching a video located on an external HD will leave some traces on your internal system drive.

These will be minimal (less than a few kb) but include (at least):

1) prefetch entries (C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch)

2) recent documents .lnk entries (C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Recent)

There are probably more "places" to look, maybe someone with an IT forensics background can help.