I am attempting to resume a Windows Vista laptop from hibernate, but the resume process seems to be stuck in an endless loop in which Windows is repeatedly trying to read from the optical drive. When I press the Power On button on the laptop, the screen is black (not even the backlight turns on) and the following occurs in a loop:
- Five seconds pass and I hear the optical drive being accessed. (There's no disk in the drive, so it sounds like a short buzzing noise.)
- Two seconds pass and I hear the optical drive being accessed.
- Two seconds pass and I hear the optical drive being accessed.
So it's three short buzzing noises in a row, over and over again. Eventually I have to abruptly power off the machine.
I have tried inserting a data CD into the drive as well as a bootable CD (a live Linux distro boot disk). For both, the optical drive spins up for a bit, but stops after Windows decides that the disk is not what it is looking for.
I have since lost the Windows Vista recovery DVD, but I don't know if inserting the recovery disk into the optical drive would have a different effect than the bootable CD.
I have tried pressing F8 immediately after pressing the Power On button (hoping to enter System Restore), but that did not have an effect.
Is there a special key sequence that will cause Windows to bypass resuming from hibernate, effectively ignoring hiberfil.sys
?
Best Answer
Sledgehammer method:
Find a Linux Live CD (for example, a recent Ubuntu; any bootable system with
ntfs-3g
will work). Boot from it, open your system disk, and deletehiberfil.sys
. Then reboot.