<SYSTEMDRIVE>:\hiberfil.sys

Overview

The hiberfil.sys file is linked to the hibernation, hybrid sleep, and Fast Boot (Windows 8) / Fast Startup (Windows 10) features. Those features are mostly in use on Windows laptops / desktops and are generally not available by default on Windows virtual machines (and require the hibernation feature to be implemented at the hypervisor level).

As the hiberfil.sys file is shared by three different (but similar) features, the file can be in different states:

  • Hybernation: full main memory snapshot, created following a user triggered hibernation.

  • Hybrid sleep: full main memory snapshot, combination of the sleep and hibernation states. The main memory is written to the hiberfil.sys file, then the system enters a sleep mode. If power is lost during sleep, the system uses the hiberfil.sys file to boot and restore the system state.

    Available since Windows Vista, hybrid sleep is on by default for desktop systems but off by default on laptops and requires the support of hibernation (and is thus not generally available on virtual machines).

  • Fast Boot / Fast Startup: partial memory snapshot, that contains the memory of the Windows kernel and of the session 0 processes (background system services notably). Fast startup is a type of shutdown that uses an hibernation file to speed up the subsequent boot, with user(s) being logged off before the hibernation file is created. In this state, the hiberfil.sys file will notably contain MFT file and INDX records, and registry hives (SYSTEM only after Windows 10 Build 17134).

    Fast Boot / Fast Startup is enabled by default, but requires support of hibernation (and is thus not generally available on virtual machines).

The hiberfil.sys file is zeroed out after a system boot starting from Windows 8 / 8.1, and may also be zeroed out on system shutdown if the ClearPageFileAtShutdown registry setting is enabled (set to 0x1). As such, the hiberfil.sys file must be retrieved from a powered off system.

The structure of the hiberfil.sys file have evolved starting with Windows 8, with notable changes in the compression methods used. There is thus currently two possible formats:

  • The “old” format, starting from Windows XP to Windows 7.

  • The “new” format, starting from Windows 8 to Windows 11.

Tool(s)

Both hiberfil.sys file formats can be processed with Hibernation recon and (more recently) volatility2 / volatility3 to convert the hibernation file to a raw file.

Once converted, the resulting image can be analyzed as a standard memory image (with potentially less information however) using tools such as volatility and MemProcFS.

# volatility2 for hibernation files in the old format.

# Prints basic information about the hibernation file.
volatility -f <HIBERNATION_FILE> --profile=<PROFIL> hibinfo

# Converts the hibernation file to a raw file.
volatility -f <HIBERNATION_FILE> --profile=<PROFIL> imagecopy -O <OUTPUT>

# volatility3 for hibernation files in the new format.

# Prints basic information about the hibernation file.
volatility3 -f <HIBERNATION_FILE> windows.hibernation.Info

# Converts the hibernation file to a raw file.
# The version to specify depends on the Windows version targeted (Windows 8/8.1 to Windows 11 23H2).
# Possible values can be checked using windows.hibernation.Dump -h.
volatility3 -f <HIBERNATION_FILE> windows.hibernation.Dump --version <VERSION>

References

Tags: windows_misc

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