Laptop freezes

[Pghpooh]

I have Vista Home Premium (sp1) with all the updates, etc. installed on my laptop.
A month or so ago when I shut down my laptop I accidentally clicked on Hibernate and the laptop shut down.
When I tried to turn the laptop back on the laptop would not start. I have to push the power button on and then off many times before the laptop will finally start to boot up.
When it fails the following happens.
Push power on button
All lights on the laptop come on
The hard drive light will come on and stay on steady for a few seconds or the hard drive light will come on for a few seconds and then flash three to four times.

The screen stays blank.

Finally after many tries to power the laptop up it will start. When I power the laptop up and it fails I puch the power button till all lights go off and wait 20 to 30 seconds before powering the laptop back up.

Is there a problem with the sleep mode or hibernate mode in Vista? Or do I have other problems?
I have sent HP several e-mails and they replied and each answer was from a different person and each answer seems to address a different problem!
I am not really complaining about HP because the laptop is out of warranty and they are trying to help.
Any thoughts and suggestions and help is needed!!! LOL
Thanks
Pghpooh

 

[Rottie]

Fresh install Vista will cure some problem and be careful what you press or click on wrong button.

 

[corkyg]

I have always found hibernation to be a buggy, unreliable option. Disabling the Hibernation feature in Windows XP was fairly straightforward using the Power Options in the Control Panel. It's a bit trickier in Windows Vista, though, since there's no graphical way of disabling this via the Control Panel. (Or if there is, I certainly didn't find it!)

Next time you get it running, try this:

Click Start (or the Windows Logo) -> All Programs -> Accessories. In this folder you will see an entry labeled Command Prompt. Right-click this entry and select "Run as administrator." At the command prompt, type "powercfg -h off" (without the quotes) and press Enter. A reboot is not necessary.

Unfortunately there's no confirmation message to indicate whether or not you were successful.

If you decide that you want to enable Hibernation later you can do so by following steps 1-3 again, but this time specify "on" instead of "off" during step 3.

Note: If you get a User Account Control dialog during any of the above steps you can simply click Continue.

 

[Rottie]

Under Vista:
Click Control Panel
On Left Panel click classic view
Click Power Option
On left panel you can find "Change when the computer sleep"
Click on "Change Advanced Power Settings"
then you can scroll down and click on "sleep" there you can find hibernation.

 

[Matt1970]

Run disk cleanup. Right Click Drive C then click Properties. If you see hibernate in there, unclick it and it will disable hibernate and delete the 1gig or so of hibernate files. Sleep mode is just fine for Laptops. I have left mine in sleep mode on battery for 2 days at one time and came back and it only used like 30% of the battery, and this is a weak battery.

 

[Pghpooh]

HI
Thanks for the replies. I would have answered sooner but was baby sitting grandkids for a few days.
I went into the HP web site and sent a email to them in the help section. Over the past few days I got 5 replies and as I answered each one someone else from HP replied.
The scary thing is each reply and solution is different!!!
LOLOL
Thanks
Pghpooh