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#11
The ram idea sounds like it should work, though I've not tried it. The hiberfil.sys stores the active contents of ram and if the installed ram is too small I would expect it to invalidate the hibernation file.
I'm not sure that resetting the bios would have any effect. Whether it resumes from hibernation or does a cold boot is determined by what's on the HDD, not any bios setting. I have in the past hibernated a laptop, swapped out its drive for another to do tests (like a clean install). When I returned the original HDD and powered up it resumed from hibernation as if nothing had happened.
There is a very useful tool here on this forum....
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk
This is a bootable Windows environment that can be put on a usb. You could boot from that as a way to copy your important files off the PC onto another usb. You could also use a Linux Live usb for the same purpose if you prefer.
If you use the built-in 'Refresh this PC' function you'll loose all installed apps, including any OEM utilities. A better approach would be an in-place repair install which keeps all installed apps and files....it looks like I will begin the 'refresh your PC' and hope it dont go up in flames,
Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade