What you might be seeing is a hibernation file with 1 current memory snapshot + traces of earlier hibernations. In addition to that you might also be seeing traces of data from unallocated on the volume from the time at which the current hiberfil.sys (this current OS) was created. Those hits you mention are likely data from the previous OS (but not necessarily). Based on your description it sounds as the data with the 2015 reference is from the previous OS. The possible fact that it was uncompressed also supports previous OS theory. However the current memory snapshot might also contain uncompressed pages, so it is not possible to say for sure with this little information. AFAIK the only tool that can analyze the hibernation file into such detail is; https://
Could be worth a shot if you need to know what is what within that file.
Windows was installed in 2016
Fresh install over an older one?
may be. But that's interesting, the file hiberfil.sys is not replaced? Only the file metadata in the file system is updated? I will conduct a test and be sure to write about the results.
If you look there is probably many things left untouched by such a reinstall. While you're at it look at pagefile.sys as well. Probably not (re)created as well during reinstall.
When designing operative systems, no consideration is given to forensic consistency.
@tito what if the bios/uefi or the OS date/time was set back manually ? )
Such actions are most likely logged in the event log. During the analysis, there was no data about the change in the date and time.
Yes, there are clearly defined eventlog IDs for this - if it is changed inside the OS. If it is changed in a boot menu, it is not.