Closed lid on laptop while turned on question

Is it ok to transport the laptop by folding the lid to make it sleep while it's turned on? It has this active protection system that issues a warning once it is slightly moved so I'm concerned if the hard drive is still succeptible to damage even if it is sleeping.

 

I believe, when the IBM is in Standby or Hibernate, the HDD is not moving. However, I do not know if the head is retracted or not.

 

turn it off just in case and just to be sure...

 

Does the active protection system park the heads before the laptop goes into sleep mode? I figure that program doesn't run while the machine's in sleep.

 

Of course(?) the head parks when the drive goes to sleep. Otherwise the heads would scratch the surface on the disk when it spun down (and up).

I see no problem at all doing so. Although for longer periods I'd use hibernate (mainly to save battery).

 

I just want to be on the very safe side so I'll turn off the laptop instead which arises another question.

Is it safe to turn on the laptop after just a few seconds of turning it off? I am used to hearing about the 30 second waiting period for desktops before turning it on again. I myself don't practice this on my desktop but laptops have parts that are more difficult (if not impossible) to replace.

 

I have started to just make it sleep and then carry it around (in a case).

It's not much going on in a sleeping computer. Pretty much only the ram and essential parts for waking it up are alive. Doesn't generate any heat (ok, very litle) and I'm positive that harddrive won't injure more than it would if it were turned off (sure there are some electronics on it still running but they are about one infinity more tolerant to shocks than a spinning drive ).
Assuming that you don't drop it in a waterfountain or something.

Wouldn't store it for any longer periods in standby (and in a bag), mainly because it might overheat if something wakes it (thats my main concern about putting it to sleep, and you could easily forget about it if you didn't need it again).


About waiting before turning it on again. I don't know about that but I've not been so good on keeping that myself. I usually just wait until the drive has spun down (a few secs). I think that 30 secs comes from being sure that the BIOS has discharged itself, thats really not nessesary unless you are planning on clearing it or something.
My personal opinion is that waiting a few secs is safe but again I say opinion because I don't have the facts and could be completely wrong. But thats what I'm using.
Not that I turn off and on my computer rapidly that often. Probably the only time is when the computer has crashed and you have to make a hard reboot.

About that, sometimes it restarts and sometimes it shuts down when holding the power-button. Any trigger that changes that? (I should look in the BIOS/manual but if someone knows it I'd like to know).

Another wild guess (please correct me) is that if something is stressed it might be the power-supply. And most of it is outside the laptop. So very easy to replace (not that cheap though) if unfortune would struck (because I know it isn't common at all) and something would die because of a fast off/on.

 

If my computer isn't on, I keep it in standby/sleep mode. I never turn it off, except for a restart every few weeks, but I probably put it on standby ~5 times a day. You won't damage your harddrive when the computer is in standby or hibernate; the harddrive is stopped, just as it would be when the computer is completely off. Just don't get it wet. If it will be several hours before I use it again, I may use hibernate instead (standby uses a tiny bit of power - i think maybe a quarter to 1/2% per hour?). You can turn it off if you want, but restarting takes forever.