Absolutely NO Hibernate

First, sorry about spelling, I'm bad at it.
OK, so whenever I click on "Hibernate" from the start menu, my computer goes on standby. Also my computer usually has the uncanny ability to Hibernate when its battery gets critical. Now it just goes on standby, and I lose my work.

Thank you for your help!

Hibernate utilizes a disk file named hiberfil.sys placed on C. It's generally in the 3-4GB or larger range (depending on the amount of memory in your computer), and if you previously have hibernated successfully that file would have already been allocated from previous hibernations. But it may vary in size, so that its required size now is perhaps larger than it was previously.

Have you run out of space on C?


Have you changed video or updated video drivers recently? These are associated with the hibernation function.


Do you have a system restore point from a moment in time that you know you used to have working hibernation, that you can restore from to see if that fixes the problem?

More extreme, do you have a "system image" you can restore (first, preserving any recent data you don't want to lose in the process, to a second drive or backup you can later copy back from after the "system image" is restored)? Presumably, this system image was again taken at a moment in time when hibernation was working?


Obviously it's not clear yet whether the problem is a software or hardware issue, but certainly either of the above "restore" options from a previously working environment where hibernation was functional should return you to that state... if the current problem is a Windows or driver software cause. Presumably you would be back in business after the restore, and hibernation would be working again.

If it's really a hardware problem of some sort, you should still have the same problem even after these restores.

This would at least narrow your diagnostic efforts... to either hardware or software.

I don't think I changed any of my drivers in a while.
I did try a system restore, but I don't THINK (I'm not sure) that it was far enough back. I do not have a system image. Not sure if this is useful, but I do have a Windows 7 32bit repair disk, as well as an install disk (I did not use it to install Windows on my computer). I have 55.5 GB of disk space on my windows partition.

I can't find hiberfil.sys on my hard drive either.

Thanks for your help.

Micro1321 said:

I don't think I changed any of my drivers in a while.

Ok, so it's not the video drivers which would explain your symptom.

I did try a system restore, but I don't THINK (I'm not sure) that it was far enough back.

Normally, there are multiple generations of system restore points retained, depending on max space utilization settings. This space utilization limit can certainly control how much of your hard drive gets eaten up by these system restore points, but sometimes it's "penny wise, pound foolish".

You can check your system restore space setting by Control Panel -> System and Security -> System -> Advanced system settings -> system properties window. Then select the "system protection" tab, select your C drive from the list of drives (it probably shows "ON"), and push the "configure" button. There's a slider that controls how much hard drive space should be the, as a GB number and also a percentage of your hard drive capacity. Adjust this, and push the OK button to apply... if what you see is outlandish.

If you've never played with this setting before, I don't know what the default value would be on your system. But the more space you allow, the more generations of restore points will be kept before "pruning" the oldest ones to make room for new ones.

I do not have a system image.

Unfortunate. This is perhaps THE biggest new feature in Win7, in my opinion. It's worth it to buy an external USB hard drive and use it for backups, and for system images... as you can now see.

Not sure if this is useful, but I do have a Windows 7 32bit repair disk, as well as an install disk (I did not use it to install Windows on my computer).

Not of any value for resolution of the current problem. We still don't really know what has caused it to show up... either hardware, or software, or battery issue, or something else.

I have 55.5 GB of disk space on my windows partition.

You mean 55GB of FREE disk space on C? Or is 55GB the total size of your C partition?

I can't find hiberfil.sys on my hard drive either.

Well it's a hidden+system file, and you would not normally see it in any Explorer view unless you've modified the default Win7 settings to show hidden/system files.

Open Explorer (say, click on the "Libraries" folder icon on the task bar, or just open Explorer somehow) and then click on the "Organize" item near the top-left, and select "folder and search options" from the dropdown menu, to get the Folder Options window. Then select the "view" tab, and check the "show hidden files, folders and drives" radio button. Then push the OK button.



Now once again Explore your C drive, and see if you see hiberfil.sys (you should also now see pagefile.sys, which is in the same system+hidden category).


If you don't see hiberfil.sys but you do see pagefile.sys, then we're onto something. It is absolutely relevant to the problem if you do NOT see hiberfil.sys, since without it there can be no hibernation.

What we don't know then, is which came first... the chicken or the egg. Is the somehow missing hiberfil.sys the CAUSE of the problem, or the RESULT of the problem?

Of course, if you DO see hiberfil.sys but are still not getting hibernation, well we don't know the answer yet but it's an interesting piece of information we need to fit into the story somehow.

Micro1321 said:

I can see hidden files and folders, and cannot see hiberfil.sys, OR pagefile.sys.

Ooops... sorry, my mistake. In addition to checking the "show hidden files" item I'd mentioned before, you also need to UN-CHECK the "hide protected operating system files" item just a bit below it:



You'll get a confirmation popup when you un-check that item, so just reply OK.

Note that my own preference is also to UN-CHECK that "hide extensions for known file types" item, because my own personal preference is to WANT to see things like the ".txt" or ".avi" or ".docx" or ".mpg" or ".MP3" or whatever extension, when seeing a file name. I don't want to have to guess at it, or deduce what it is from the associated program mini-icon to its left. I simply want to see the full and complete file name exactly as it is... including extension. Period.

Now if you look at C you will (or should) see these two files, hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys:

What does pagefile.sys do?

It's a system file that allows your operating system to function as if it had much more RAM virtual memory than it really does physically have.

To be technical, this pagefile.sys is part of the "paging mechanism" in the operating system which swaps "virtual page frames" (that provide addressability to virtual memory with virtual addresses that can be exceedingly large) into "physical page frames" in your actual finite physical RAM memory, which is almost always (until recent technology improvements coupled with drops in memory prices) smaller than your virtual address space need.

So you can run Windows as if it had 6GB of "virtual address space", even though you may only have 512MB of "physical memory". Obviously, it will not run as well as if it truly had 6GB of physical memory... because with 6GB of physical memory there would likely be zero or almost zero "page swapping" since everything in the "virtual address space" would actually be mapped to true "physical RAM memory" to match.

That's why adding more physical RAM memory (in a 64-bit OS that can support it) is always a good thing... to improve performance by reducing "page swapping" when your open application windows require more and more "virtual memory" from "virtual address space".

Anyway, that's what pagefile.sys is for. It generally is sized at about the size of your real RAM memory when no paging/swapping is occurring (i.e. you have sufficient real physical RAM memory to support your Windows needs). However it will grow in size if you open a sufficient number of program windows, tabs in browsers, documents to be edited, etc., so that the total current "virtual address space" requirement exceeds that of your actual physical RAM memory... so that you now need more "virtual address space" than your physical RAM memory can 1:1 map.

It is a system file, managed by the system, sized by the system automatically, and you don't need to worry about it. That's also why it's normally hidden from casual user Explorer view.


NOTE: in my own mind, I was really thinking about looking for it with a File Manager that I use named "Free Commander". This is a highly recommended free program that performs all Windows Explorer functions and then some, in a highly intuitive and easy-to-use multi-pane presentation.

I don't have that "hide protected operating system files" item un-checked, because actually I do NOT want to see them when doing normal Explorer functions... so that I won't accidentally rename or delete them or otherwise modify or move them.

But I can still see them with Free Commander:



You should consider installing Free Commander, available from here... it's highly recommended by me, and other users on this Forum. Excellent product.

I have 55.5GB of FREE space, and 42.8GB on another partition. (Ubuntu)

Well then it should not be a space problem not being able to allocate hiberfil.sys.

So, now that you've un-checked "hide protected files" and looked at your C drive with Explorer (or Free Commander), do you have hiberfil.sys or not?

Trace Windows 7 boot-shutdown-hibernate-standby-resume issues - MSFN Forums

Micro1321 said:

I can now find the two files.

Hmmm... that's good, and actually what I expected you to find, really (since "hibernate" was still an available shutdown option and that means hiberfil.sys should exist).

But it's also bad, in that it means something yet to be explained is preventing the hibernation process from actually proceeding as intended, whether you manually request it or whether your low-battery trigger attempts to hibernate.

Does this failure still occur with the A/C adapter connected, so that the laptop is not running on battery?