Data wipe isn't actually data wiping?

[jamesino]

I've been installing custom ROMs recently and I liked to clean flash them.

I use CWM Recovery. When I am erasing stuff, I got into CWM and wipe data/format sysem 3 times, wipe cache, wipe Davlik and then flash the new ROM.

Ive never been having any problems with the new ROMs or anything, but when I go into Root Explorer, all my old files and data are still there from the previous ROM. For example, I store my audio files from the voice recorder on my phone's internal SD and the files are still there. Stuff that I've downloaded via web browser onto the internal SD are also still there.

Is this normal?

 

[meyerweb#CB]

I believe wipe data clears only user data stored in the \data directory. The internal SD, for user data (like your audio files) is more treated kind of like a hard disk on a computer, and won't be wiped unless you do a factory reset.

See this for more information on the different internal storage partitions: Android Partitions Explained: boot, system, recovery, data, cache & misc