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Windows Vista, C cloned to D successfully, and then D free space suddenly increases by 13GB

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using true Image 2010 on Vista business. I clone from C drive to D drive and after cloning, the target Drive D has the same amount of Data as C.

AFter I use the system for a short while the D drive free space suddenly increases by 13 GB.
I had been using True image on XP for years with no problems and I find this issue of Vista Puzzling

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William:

Vista uses Shadow Copy Storage to keep copies of changed sectors so that you can retrieve "Previous Versions" of files. When you clone the disk, TI does not necessarily copy sectors to the exact same location on the target disk. So, after booting the cloned disk, Vista will detect that the Shadow Copy Files are invalid, and will delete them. That's probably why your free space suddenly increased by 13 GB.

Vista will again start creating daily Shadow Copies, so eventually the free space will decrease as Shadow Storage fills again.

Mark

You are so right. I spent all weekend testing and reading and came to the same conclusion
and I now realiize that My cloning process is working.

I went to Control panel/Sysytems/protection and found only my C disk checked for Shadowing so I also checked both my D and F drives for protection , thinking that this would preserve the shadow data on these 2 drives after I cloned to them.
After cloning C to D and then F , both drives appeared to have the Identical data of C drive, and then in a short while they both automatically deleted the shadow data.

The caveat would seem to be that when you reboot using a cloned drive, initially you will not have any restore point ability until the shadow process creates new ones.

Thank you so much for your reponse

William:

Yes, and this applies not just to cloning but also to imaging. The method used by Acronis will not preserve shadow copy files. Windows will delete them and start over again with an empty shadow storage area.

To preserve shadow copy files requires three things to happen. First, the disk must have the same disk signature (often it is changed on a clone). Second, the partition must be restored to the exact same location on the disk (sometimes it is relocated slightly; especially if restoring a partition that was created by Vista/Win 7 Disk Management and having 2048-sector offset), and finally, all of the sectors would have to be restored to the exact same locations on the target disk. Since not all of these are true, Windows detects that the shadow copy files are invalid and deletes them.