Move Intel Rapid Start hibernation partition to a different SSD

Question

I have an Acer Ultrabook. It came with a 20GB SSD and a 320GB, the hibernation file resides on the 20GB SSD. My old laptop had a 128GB SSD that I installed in to this ultrabook.

To migrate everything, I imaged the previous 320GB HD to .VHD format, then flashed the image to the 128GB SSD.

The system uses the 20GB SSD as the hibernation drive. But I want to move it to the 128GB SSD. The reason for this is that the 128GB SSD is much faster than the 20GB SSD. I can boot into windows much faster than I can resume the system from hibernation. It is painstakingly slow in comparison.

I've benchmarked the drives. The 20GB SSB gets about 240MB/s in sequential read. The 128GB SSD does close to 550MB/s. But the 20GB SSD is more than twice as fast at the 4k read/write and other smaller reads/writes. So I've made it the page file drive. I want to get that sequential hibernation file off of it and on to the 128GB SSD. How can I do that?

Answer 1

I figured it out. It's a part of a special feature set of Z77/H77/Q77 Intel chipsets called Rapid Start Technology and Smart Response Technology. Rapid Start Technology needs to be enabled in the BIOS and it must be on a SSD.

You can still create the hibernation partition and everything without it, but I'm not sure how you will get Windows to use it without "Intel Rapid Start".

This is what it took to move the partition to the other drive:

EDIT: So after I did this to my laptop, I decided to do it to the desktop computer I built which also has a Z77 chipset and an SSD. It never had hibernation enabled.

I came across a problem in shrinking my Windows SSD partition that others may also have. I couldn't shrink the volume because of unmovable files that were at the end of the drive. I was able to shrink the laptop easily because it had been restored from a VHD image, and all data was at the beginning of the drive. If you cannot shrink your volume, check the edit at the bottom of this post.

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1. Open disk management

   1. Right-click C: drive and select Shrink volume.
   2. Shrink the volume to the size of system RAM plus 1 megabyte more.
      • You should now have an unpartitioned space the size of your RAM at the end of the disk
   3. Right-click the unallocated space, select New Simple Volume.
   4. In the Wizard that comes up, click:
      • Next
      • Next
      • Select Do not assign a drive letter or drive path, click Next
      • Select Do not format this volume, click Next
      • Finish

2. Open CMD and type the command diskpart

   1. Enter the command lis dis
   2. Find the disk you want it on, such as disk 0, and enter sel dis 0
   3. Enter the command lis par
   4. Find the partition you created in Disk Management, in my case it was partition 3.
      I entered the command sel par 3
   5. Enter the command det dis, a list showing the volumes will come up.
   6. Find the volume you want, in my case it was Volume 2. I entered the command sel vol 2
   7. Enter the command set id=84 override
      • there will be a pause as it partitions the volume
   8. Enter the command exit

3. Now we need to go back into diskpart and delete the previous hibernation partition. I didn't do it while we were already in diskpart because I don't know how to deselect a disk.

   1. In CMD, type the command diskpart

   2. Assuming you have the same setup I do, type these commands in order:

      lis dis
      sel dis 1
      lis par
      sel par 1
      del par override
      

   Be sure you have the right one, override = honeybadger status

4. Open/Install Intel Rapid Start, it comes with the computer or is available in the drivers section of the manufactures website or motherboard manufacture website.

   1. Compare it to the screenshot below, make sure the status for Intel Rapid Start Technology is On.
      

   2. Optional: Disable windows Hibernation and reclaim disk space, in CMD enter the command: powercfg.exe /hibernation off

      • Intel Rapid Start activates when the computer has been in sleep mode for the amount of time you select. Not by telling the computer to hibernate. So it's best to just disable windows hibernation.

      • On my desktop, I set Intel RapidStart to activate after sleeping for 0 minutes. Now when I click "sleep", the computer goes into a weird boot mode where the fans blast on 100% for the amount of time it takes to write the systems ram to the Intel Rapid Start SSD partition, then shuts off. When I boot the computer, there is no BIOS POST, instead the fans blast on high for a few seconds and then bam, I'm at the desktop. Pretty sweet.

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EDIT: IF YOU CANT SHRINK YOUR VOLUME

There are two methods. The first method involves doing everything from within windows without 3rd party tools, the second involves using 3rd party tool, GParted, and putting it on a bootable flash drive. The first method I tried but didn't work.

Method 1: No 3rd Party Tools

1. Disable your pagefile
2. Disable hibernation with CMD command: 'powercfg -h off'
3. Turn off System Restore and Protection.
4. Reboot, try to shrink again
5. Re-enable everything.

Method 2: Works better IMO

If you can't shrink your volume, find a flash drive with at least 133MB of free space remaining. Download GParted in the form of a bootable zip archive from here: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

Or just download the exact one I used: gparted-live-0.16.1-1-i486.zip

1. Extract the .zip archive to the root directory of your flash drive.
2. Go to the flashdrive directory: \utils\win32 and run makeboot.bat file to make the drive bootable
   • Details here: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php, I used method B
3. Restart your computer and boot from the flash drive into GParted
4. Shrink your windows partition.
   • Directions here: helpdeskgeek.com/manage-partitions-in-windows-7-xp-vista
5. Remove the Flashdrive and boot the computer normally. During startup, windows will run CHKDSK to check the drives filesystem for consistency, let it do it.
6. Now start at Task 1, Step 3 of this post: "1. Open Disk Management" and "3. Right-click the unallocated space, select New Simple Volume."

Answer 2

This question is misleading, as is the answer. What you are describing is moving a hibernation 'partition', used exclusively by Intel Rapid Start Technology. This has nothing to do with a hibernation 'file' (hiberfil.sys) used by Windows Hibernation. These are two completely different and independent technologies.

The hibernation file used by Windows Hibernation (c:\hiberfil.sys) cannot be relocated. It must be in the root of the primary system partition, where it can be read by the miniature file system driver built into the critical boot files. Technet

The hibernation file used by Intel Rapid Start Technology (IRST) can be located anywhere on any SSD in the system. This is a special partition with a specific 'type' specified (depending on BIOS or UEFI) that is used exclusively by IRST. Intel IRST User Guides

Answer 3

According to this article, you cannot move the hibernation file (called hiberfil.sys), as it HAS to be stored on the primary partition that contains the bootloader.

It seems you either have a choice to disable hibernation altogether, or reformat.