Windows 7 - Attempting to Hibernate Results in Locking Instead

Overview

This post details how I fixed a problem with my laptop where attempting to hibernate the computer resulted in it locking instead.

This seems to be a reasonably uncommon problem; there are results on Google but there is no clear one-size-fits-all solution. This is largely due to there being multiple reasons this can occur. Whilst you may be more likely to see this problem if you dual boot Windows with another OS, I started seeing the issue after upgrading my laptop's hard drive.

The Problem

Every day, when finished with the laptop, I click the hibernate button, close the lid and place the laptop away in a drawer. Since upgrading my hard drive however, I've found that the next morning the laptop's battery is completely drained and prompts me like I've let the computer running. Tracking that down today, I discovered that when the hibernate button is pressed now, the screen goes blank for a few seconds before returning me to the lock screen. Still fully powered on, just locked.

The Solution

The solution for me was to enable disk automounting. From Microsoft's tech support here:

When enabled (the default), Windows automatically mounts the file system for a new basic volume when it is added to the system, and then assigns a drive letter to the volume.

 The problem I was facing was the automounting was disabled on the new hard drive for some reason.

To fix, you need to run the following command from an elevated command window.

1. c:\windows\system32>diskpart
2. DISKPART> automount enable
3. DISKPART> exit

Put simply, line 1 enter the DISKPART utility. Line 2 enables automounting. Line 3 exits the DISKPART utility.

You'll want to restart your machine after this. Once you have rebooted, you can see if this fix worked for you. As mentioned previously, this will only fix one of many possible problems that has the system of locking instead of hibernating, but if it does work for you, drop me a comment below.