How to escape from "preparing to hibernate" - Win XP SP3

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How to escape from "preparing to hibernate" - Win XP SP3

Anonymous

Usually hibernation works perfectly, but this time it hangs on "preparing to hibernate" (8 hours).

It is pretty much a disaster if I loose unsaved data. How can I escape from this screen and go back to the desktop to save my data?

I can't start task manager (ctrl-alt-del) and keys like ESC and the power switch doesn't work.

I can't find any secret key combination (Google-search) and I'm concerned about switching off the PC and then try to analyse hiberfil.sys

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3 additional answers

Answer 1

Sathish Says:

Please find below the steps to configure this Hibernate option for WINDOWS XP users.

Right click on any empty area in your desktop and click New → Shortcut
Paste the following into the text box and click on Next.

rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll, SetSuspendState

Give a suitable name for this shortcut and click Finish.
Now you would like to change the icon for this shortcut to be more appropriate.
Right click the shortcut → Properties
Now click on Change Icon button and click on Browse. You will be taken to the C:\sysroot\System32 folder.
Select the file powrprof.dll as shown

You will see an alert as shown below. Click OK.

Now you will see a list of icons displayed. Select the power icon or any other icon of your choice as shown.
Now you will see the shortcut on your desktop.

All you need to do is that, just double-click this icon before leaving for the day and don?t forget to switch off your monitor.

The next day you switch ON your pc, all your work will be restored. 2. Sathish Says:

above from here:

http://www.giannistsakiris.com/index.php/2009/04/08/how-to-enable-hibernate-in-windows-xp/

Answer 2

http://fivepercent.us/2008/06/06/windows-xp-standby-and-hibernate-problems-solved-finally-i-hope/

above is an interesting read on hibernation, evidently there can be no open programs at all, this is pretty new to me as I do not use hibernation, my pc stays on 24/7 or I just turn it off. :)

Answer 3

No, right clicking does not work.

After waiting more than 24h I finally decided to switch off the PC by holding down the power key in 4 seconds.

I know the source to the troubles: A benchmark app from Atto I forgot to close before hibernating. Most likely it won't happen again if I remember to close all troublemakers.

It would be pretty nice if "Prepare to hibernate" timed out after for instance 10 min. or you could break out of this screen using a magic key combination.

Unfortunately it seems to be a hard job to get data out of hiberfil.sys:

http://ask.metafilter.com/30437/Recover-hiberfilsys-data

Answer 4

can you right click on the task bar and choose task manager?

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-performance/windows-xp-freezes-while-preparing-to-hibernate/33ebcf78-5181-48bf-a80c-20baea98d0c7

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-performance/pc-freezes-at-preparing-to-standby/9b9171e8-8f5f-e011-8dfc-68b599b31bf5

read above and if that does not help below is a google search page for this issue, but from what I have read you should be able to shut down power manually reboot and start over, but remember to run check disk, as there is the potential for data corruption and system corruption from ungraceful shutdowns

http://www.google.com/#output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=stuck+on+Preparing+to+hibernate%2C+xp&oq=stuck+on+Preparing+to+hibernate%2C+xp&gs_l=hp.3..0i22i30l3.2578.11782.0.12485.35.25.0.9.9.0.454.8641.2-5j17j3.25.0....0...1c.1.19.psy-ab.6X8qkVu8e7I&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.48705608,d.dmg&fp=47842e5ef51f8272&biw=1024&bih=561

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How to escape from "preparing to hibernate" - Win XP SP3

3 additional answers