System & reserved files on a secondary drive?

Copy back a few folders at the time and keep checking to see when those 14GB start showing up in the System files. Then you can isolate which one is causing the problem.

I followed your advise and copying folder by folder does not reproduce the issue.

However, if I copy everthing at once the 14GBs come back. 🤷‍♂️

Thanks for the suggestion 👍

Done and dusted!

If I format the same drive with exFAT or FAT32 the used space is much less, but still not a file that you can see.

Hi fg,

I cleaned the drive using DISKPART and ended up with 102MB which are not Windows system files nor will render my PC unusable if the drive isn't connected. 😁

However, when copying back the data from the clone, Windows reports 14GB again.

Something within the data is causing Windows to misreport System & reserved files.

I'll dig deeper and keep you posted. That is all for now.

Thanks to all that participated.

Regards.

Looks to me that the File system itself is included in the System files space.

Copy back a few folders at the time and keep checking to see when those 14GB start showing up in the System files.

Then you can isolate which one is causing the problem. 😎

In your case it shows as System files you only have that one entry after you click on System & reserved, there is no other entry specific for reserved space like we saw when it had Restore points.

Do the System files include reserved space or not? How is that interpreted? 🤣🤣🤷‍♂️

There was a separate entry in the case of system restore points. Wich one is considered reserved space?

If I format the same drive with exFAT or FAT32 the used space is much less, but still not a file that you can see.

Hi fg,

I cleaned the drive using DISKPART and ended up with 102MB which are not Windows system files nor will render my PC unusable if the drive isn't connected. 😁

However, when copying back the data from the clone, Windows reports 14GB again.

Something within the data is causing Windows to misreport System & reserved files.

I'll dig deeper and keep you posted. That is all for now.

Thanks to all that participated.

Regards.

Hi Lugoo and thanks for your reply.

I was made aware earlier by fg2001 of hidden file system space on an empty drive, but that is not the issue. Windows is reporting 14GB of System & reserved files nowhere to be found.

As pointed out by fg2001 "What is considered System & reserved space in that Storage usage page?"

IMHO, Windows system files or Windows reserved files should not be located on a secondary drive unless purposely done by the user.

This may be just semantics for some but confusing none the less, at least for me.