Hibernate/Standby no longer available and computer keeps rebooting without shutting down

Seeing that no-one has replied yet I thought I'd say something...

You can probably find the solution by looking for "hibernate tab" on Google.

However after I did some research on the frist four suggested sites it seems Hibernate is unreliable and will not always work. There are too many variables that can cause it to fail.

- Outdated drivers

- Outdated chipset/BIOS

- Cache overloaded (or hibernation file corrupted)

- Needing defrag

- Needing cache cleaning

- Applications installed that do not support hibernation

 

From Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/mobility/getstarted/hibernate.mspx:

 

2. Click the Hibernate tab, select the Enable hibernate support check box, and then click Apply.

If the Hibernate tab is unavailable, your computer does not support this feature.

 

For MS troubleshooting standby/hibernation:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=907477

 

An article about losing hibernation:

http://www.rickrogers.org/standby.htm

 

Checking the drivers:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308514

 

I hope that helps you :D

 

Robert

Thank you Robert for your reply. I appreciate you taking the time to research this.

 

As I watched the numbers viewing my question without a reply, and searching, but not finding anything that seemed to apply, after a few days, I finally resorted to taking the computer back one "restore" point.  When that did nothing I went back another point, and that worked. 

 

In trying to figure out what happened, I can only conclude that the power must have gone off while the computer was going into hibernation.  It had been a stormy day, and the power had gone off for only a moment at one point when I was in the garage.  I just assumed that the computer shut off as it normally would in that instance, and turned it back on.  It was only later when I went to shut it off that I noticed that it had no Standby, and then realized that it had not Hibernated when next it was inactive.  Why that should change/eliminate the hibernate tab, I don't understand.  Add that to the long list of other things I am ignorant about.

 

In any case, it has been working well ever since I "Restored" it.  And again, thank you.

It just shows you how important it is to make System Restore points in case something like this happens.

 

Because the hibernation at that time failed, and the computer was turned off, there was left a file on the system, called hiberfil.sys I think, which stores the data of what you were running. If the computer was powered down, the next time it started up, the computer did not recognise that file or the contents within it - it was not longer able to do anything with that file. Put simply, Windows probably throught, "ahh, I've got a file here that was meant to have been restored after waking up from hiberantion, but it wasn't, so, umm... I don't know what to do with it." And therefore Windows takes the easy way out and says "I won't let you do hibernation at all now cause the last time you did it, you mucked it up, you did.

 

Doing the system restore would clear that hibernation file and the settings associated with it, allowing you to use the feature again when Windows knew it could still make hibernation "restore points".

 

I hope that makes it a bit easier to understand, I'm not certain that is exactly how Windows acts but I know a considerable amount about the nature of Windows so that is my best explanation of it.

 

I'm glad you got it sorted anyway :)

 

All the best,

Robert