PC no longer hibernates or sleeps, can't find the right fix.

Due to a recent crash that damaged the registry file I had to purchase a new hard drive and OS to go with it. Instead of using Vista, which had been the OS on this computer, the installer (and savior of my files, etc.) used Windows 7 Professional. I'm admittedly not savvy of these things, so asked a couple of others who are, and both said it was a viable choice.

Upon getting it back, (among other things) I am no longer able to put the computer in hibernation or sleep modes. When clicking on "power button action" inside of the start menu properties I only get "shut down, switch users, log off, and restart" (just fyi...if I click on the actual start menu, and then the arrow to the right of the shut down button, both hibernate and sleep are there, but are grayed out & thus deactivated; it's only when opening the "power button action" drop down menu within the start menu properties that they are not there at all). If I log off, the monitor powers down for about 2 seconds, and then comes right back on (to the log in screen). When I simply walk away, the screen saver sometimes turns on after 4 minutes, as I have set it to do but will either turn off again after a short while (haven't found the pattern for this yet) or not turn on at all. Other than those brief seconds after logging off, the display itself never shuts down unless I do so manually.

I have already tried the following:

1. In "Control panel - Hardware & Sound - Power Options: Select a power plan" I have set "power saver" as my preferred plan, and set the display to turn off after 10 minutes. Note: there is NOT a "put the computer to sleep" option anywhere in any of the power option plans.

2. In "Control Panel - Network & Internet - Network Connections...Power Management" I verified that "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" is clicked, and unclicked "allow this device to wake the computer." Not sure if this is relevant to my issue.

3. Per the instructions found in these forums (Hibernate - Enable or Disable), I attempted option 3. Upon opening the hibernate enabled box I found it was already set at the recommended value data of 1, Base Hexadecimal.

4. Per the instructions found at Microsoft support How to disable and re-enable hibernation on a computer that is running Windows (as well as the sevenforums) I attempted to make hibernation available via the command prompt (administrator: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe). At the prompt I typed in powercfg.exe /hibernate on and got the following message(s):

Hibernation failed with the following error: The request is not supported.

The following items are preventing hibernation on this system.
There are one or more legacy drivers installed.
VgaSave
An internal system component has disabled hibernation.


5. Just for kicks I also tried to create a hibernate shortcut, as shown in (Hibernate Shortcut - Create) but nothing happens when I click on the icon.

I have screen shots of just about everything I've mentioned and/or attempted in case they are of use.

I've left a few messages for the installer, but as of yet he has not deemed it necessary to return my calls (going on 4 days now).

It's critical that I have some type of power down option, since I must often step away from the computer for various chunks of time, and don't want to shut it down each time I do (but also don't want to pay the bill to keep it constantly running at full steam). Any suggestions?

Thanks!!
Remy

You can try to repair the system files by running "scf /scannow" in the command prompt, with out the quotes.

I am not familiar with this, and based upon the warnings & other info I saw when I looked it up, am afraid that it could hurt my system by automatically replacing something that maybe shouldn't be replaced(??). I'm just not knowledgeable enough to feel comfortable running it.

Are there any other suggestions or perhaps a good explanation of what running the system file checker will truly achieve and what it may possibly do that can be harmful (if anything)?

Thanks again.
Remy