How To Turn Hibernation On/Off In Windows 7/8/Vista/XP

Hibernation is a feature of windows where the user can "put the pc to sleep" so that you do not lose any of your ongoing work but still your pc doesn't use any power. Most of us have learned in school that RAM stands for Random Access Memory, and also that it  needs constant power supply to store data. Unlike other storage devices such as memory cards or other disks, once the power supply is cut the data stored in ram will simply vanish.



When we use a computer, the data about the current ongoing processes are stored in ram for easy and quick access. This means that if you are using a program in your pc all the data about that program is stored in your RAM. When we hibernate the computer, windows saves all the data from the ram to your harddisk so that it can be easily restored when we power-on the computer again. Because of the transfer of data from the RAM to harddisk you need enough free space on-the harddisk equal to the capacity of your ram. But don't worry, windows automatically reserves space for this in the windows drive (C:\). When you choose to show the hidden files and system files you can see a file named hiberfil.sys.

The actual process of enabling hibernation is actually quite easy. Follow the steps below.

1. Go to C:\Windows\System32 and right click on cmd.exe and choose "Run as administrator".

2. In the dialog box that appears, choose yes.

3. In the command window that appears type: "powercfg.exe /hibernate off" to turn hibernation off and "powercfg.exe /hibernate on" to turn hibernation on respectively.

 
Note: In windows 8, the computer will automatically go to hibernation when there is a powerloss during "Sleep" feature.