18

Ok, so I know what hiberfil.sys is, and I want to use hibernation on my laptop.

But I have another hard drive active in my laptop, it's taken from my old one... and I want to get rid of the hiberfil.sys on that drive. But even with admin privileges I can't delete it.

Any ideas?

Improve this question
4
  • 2
    Have you disabled hibernation when you try to delete the old hiberfil.sys?
    – coneslayer
    Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 16:43
  • 4
    Possible duplicate of How to remove hiberfil.sys
    – Kromster
    Commented Jan 17, 2016 at 6:58
  • 1
    Closevoters: this should not be closed as a duplicate of How to remove hiberfil.sys because this post has 10x the views and almost twice the upvotes of the proposed duplicate.
    – nc4pk
    Commented Jan 19, 2016 at 0:40
  • There are zero close votes on this question, and the linked question, is closed as a duplicate of this question so this question literally cannot be closed as a duplicate of the question you point out
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 30, 2016 at 0:10

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
27

To delete restore file you can open command prompt with admin privileges and run command

powercfg -h off

Then reboot, and Windows should automatically delete your hiberfil.sys. If it doesn't, you can remove it manually.

Then running

powercfg -h on

restores sleep and hibernate functionality.

You can start command prompt with admin privileges by starting command prompt (Windows Key+R (Run), type cmd) and then right-clicking command prompt icon on task bar and selecting "Run as administrator".

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    This works! At least on Windows 7 the file is deleted immediately, without needing a restart.
    – Peter Mortensen
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 12:17
  • Confirm what @PeterMortensen mentioned: works without restart!
    – Tregoreg
    Commented Apr 1, 2017 at 0:26
24

I wanted to do this in the easiest way possible, especially without rebooting.

Open a command prompt as administrator and go to the disk where hiberfil.sys resides. In my case:

C:\Windows\System32\> e:

In e:, check for hidden files:

E:\> dir /A:H

In the listing hiberfil.sys should show up. If so, delete it:

E:\> del /AS hiberfil.sys

I have to warn you: I don't know what happens if you do this with an active hiberfil.sys file. In my case it was on an old hard disk drive and was no longer needed.

Improve this answer
2
  • Awesome, I was afraid I'd never reclaim that space from my second drive. Couldn't use ATTRIB -S on it so was stuck.
    – Todd Pierzina
    Commented Apr 30, 2012 at 19:18
  • awesome indeed, attrib -h -r -s hiberfil.sys doesn't seem to work, however del /AS hiberfil.sys did the job for me, when trying on an unbootable Windows 10 machine from the command-line opened using Windows 10 installation media
    – George Birbilis
    Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 18:12
4

If you really, really want to get rid of the file, you can always boot to something like a Linux or Windows PE boot disk, and then delete it.

If it was placed there by the current OS, it will come right back. However, from your wording, it sounds like it was placed on the old HD by an old OS that was on it.

Improve this answer
4
  • i would've done that, but there is a small problem ;) i am on a thinkpad and those laptops have a so called ultra bay, where (in normal config) your dvd-rom is located. the feature is, that you can slide your dvd-rom out and replace it with (in my case) a frame that holds a harddrive.
    – Baarn
    Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 16:18
  • What about booting to a USB device, such as a flash drive or USB DVD drive?
    – coneslayer
    Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 16:43
  • Don't do it this way. Use the method outlined by @Olli below.
    – user3463
    Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 19:19
  • @user3463 - Why not?
    – user66001
    Commented Apr 14, 2014 at 6:18
0

For forcing remove of hibernation file and mounting it use this:

sudo mkdir /media/Windows
sudo ntfs-3g -o remove_hiberfile <device> /media/Windows
sudo umount <device>
sudo mount <device> <mountpoint>

Instead of <device> use the correct device like /dev/sda4

Update

Sorry, I don't know why, but I thought you want to mount it on linux.

So, for removing it you can use a Live-CD, like ubuntu, and execute these command above.

Improve this answer
1
-1

Right click the drive, click Properties, and go to the Security tab.

Use the Edit button to give Full control to Users and Authenticated Users.

After that, you should be able to delete the file via the command prompt (make sure that you're using the correct current directory):

del /f hiberfil.sys

That should get rid of the file. I recommend changing the permissions back afterwards.

enter image description here

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .