Does a newly created disk image of a hard drive include cache information and activity from previous use?

[batwing2]

In view of identinty theft this q. interests alot of people.

[Blencogo]

I'm not sure I understand your question.

If you have created a disc image using something like Acronis True Image, then as an Image of the hard drive it will retain everything as it is an exact copy of the disc at the time it was taiken.

However, if you are asking if a Full System Recovery back to factory settings retains any user information, then the answer is no as the hard drive is formatted before the recovery is carried out.  Both the Hidden Recovery Partition and the Recovery Disc Set only contain factory settings - no update is possible after purchase no matter if you make a Recovery Disc set many years later.