Anybody know in Windows XP C:\hiberfil.sys is? it takes up 255MB of space and my pagefile is in D:\ for some reason...

[user604]

Anybody know in Windows XP C:\hiberfil.sys is? it takes up 255MB of space and my pagefile is in D:\ for some reason...

 

[user604]

oops to clearify, im saying theres this weird file named hiberfil.sys and its located in root of C:\ drive and it takes up 255MB of space...what is that? can i delete it? And for some reason my pagefile.sys is in D:\ and takes up 400MB of space..isn't the pagefile suppose to be in C drive?

 

[Rahminator]

hibersys file is used to put your computer into hibernation and it's normal for that file to take up that much space. Hibernation is basically there so when you shut down your computer it dumps memory contents to that file so that when you turn on your comp next time, it boots much faster and when u get to the desktop all your programs are opened in the state they were in before you put your comp in hibernation. You can disable hibernation in Control Panel->Performance and Maintenance->Power Options->Hibernate tab->Untick hibernation. If you want to put your comp into hybernation, press Start->Turn off your computer->Hold down the shift button. You will see that stand-by changes to hibernate while u hold down shift. Click on that and voila. Do it with this Internet Explorer window open on this thread and you will see that when your computer boots up, you will be back here on this page .

 

[Moonbender]

HIBERFIL.SYS is the file Windows saves a memory image to for Suspend-To-Disk (aka hibernation) mode. Hibernation saves the current system status (including opened programs and documents) when you shutdown, and restores it when you startup the computer. Booting a system after hibernation is very fast compared to normal booting, around 20 seconds instead of a minute. It's IMO a very useful feature.
Suspend-To-Disk is actually a bit hidden in XP, the settings are made in the power control panel, you hibernate either by setting the computer (hardware) power button to hibernate (in the control panel) or by shift-clicking Stand-By in the shut down dialog. If you don't use it (maybe it doesn't actually work for you), just untick "enable hibernation" in the control panel, the file isn't used anymore after that.

Edit: Well, Rahminator beat me to it.