I am trying to help someone that has a problem with a Dell 530 Inspiron using Vista that will not go into hibernation mode. The message that you get generally says that IDE Channel device driver will not allow computer to enter hibernation mode. At first I did some searching thinking this was a Vista problem but found some info that says this a hardware/motherboard/Dell problem. Others with this same machine are having the same problem based on some posts on the tech sites. Any helpful comments would be appreciated. TIA.
You probably already did this but did you check dell to see if there is a driver update for this issue.
I've heard of the inverse of this problem with Vista where system enters hibernation and crashes/ blue screens upon wake. Try googling the following Vista hibernation site:microsoft.com and see if there is a ms tech article on your specific problem.
I'll double check, but after I read on the Dell site that Dell support updated one person's drivers and that did not solve the problem I did not go any further down that path. It appears updating the drivers was just a shot in the dark.