Restore from hiberfil.sys

[Nick Wilton]

Hi all,

I use hibernate mode frequently it really is a great feature. Unfortunately,
it seems that I have not been too good at using my application's save
feature! Consequently, the unexpected power outage I just experienced has
apparently wiped all my data =(

Is it possible to use the hiberfil.sys data saved from my systems last
'hibernate' to manually restore all my work to what it was before?

It would make my day if someone could help.


Regards,

 

[Thane of Lochaber]

That's an interesting idea, but I think the file is only updated when you
shut down into hibernation mode. Since the power was cut off it was probably
never updated with whatever you were working on. I may be wrong though, but
besides that I don't know if this could be done anyway. Hopefully someone
else will know more about it; I'm curious myself now.

 

[Nick Wilton]

I'm hoping hiberfil.sys still contains the information from my last
hibernate mode.

If there is some means to access it and restore it, then that would mean I
could restore my work to a version that is a day old rather than the 5 days
(that is apparently when I last clicked 'save') I am stuck with.

 

[Guillermo]

I would ALWAYS click save on everyting before hibernating, because hibernate
(on my experience) is not 100% reliable (though its close to)

 

[Nick Wilton]

So would I. But hibernate mode's reliability is not the issue.

Regardless, I now have a situation where by I would like to use hiberfil.sys
as a possible recovery solution.

 

[Andrew Morton]

A) Poke around in a *copy of* the old hiberfil.sys with a text editor -
maybe what you want is in plain text in there.

B) Use the following suggestion at your own risk.

If you're really desperate, you could:-

-2) Plug computer into a switched power outlet.
-1) Back up all data to another drive or to tape.
0) Set the BIOS power setting to go to "last state" after power cut.
Make sure any other relevant settings involve saving to disk rather than
RAM.
1) Copy hiberfil.sys to another file.
2) Put the system into hibernation, thus creating a new hiberfil.sys.
3) Switch off at the mains and pull power cord out.
4) Put the disk drive into another computer as drive D: or similar
(check the jumpers on the drive) to delete its hiberfil.sys and copy the
old hiberfil.sys to replace the deleted one.
5) Put the disk drive back into the computer (don't forget the jumpers).
5.5) Wave an instruction manual around the computer.
6) Plug in power cord. Switch on at mains. This is to reduce the chance
of nasty spikes which could happen if you used the power cord as the
switch.
6.5) Do some calming exercises.
7) Unhibernate.
8) Hope it hasn't totally confused the computer such that you have to
fdisk.

Notice I had to add steps, so you can guess for yourself how reliable
the above method might be.

Andrew

 

[Bob I]

You could try copying hiberfil.sys to another file name. Hybernate the
system, attach drive to second system, copy the renamed file back to
hiberfil.sys, reinstall drive and start it back up.