Classic Shell: Forum

Hi, I have a problem with my DVD drive. Since using Classic Shell my DVD drive hangs when I load a CD or DVD. At first I thought it was the drive so I swapped it with a different drive but same issue. You insert a disc in and it tries to access it but after the blue circle going round for a couple of minutes the PC hangs and only a reset will revive the PC. If you leave the DVD or CD in the drive the PC fails to boot after a reset.

I am on w8.1 with the latest Classic Shell.

I have come across many similar users complaining of the same thing in other forums, is this a known issue and is there a fix for it?
The solution is to remove Shell classic.

If you need any more info please let me know.

By the way all worked fine when the same rig had W7 Ultimate and also W8.1 without the shell.

Any help appreciated as I quite like using the OS with the shell.

Frank

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ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX AMD 1100T 6 Core 3.3Ghz 16G Ram W8.1 64 Bit
MS Office 2013
Black Gold Dual Freeview Tuner
DVB-S (AzureWave AD-SP400) FreeSAT Tuner
Corsair Liquid Cooler HD60
Monitor=ZR24w
Sapphire R9 720X 2G DDR5
Virgin Media 50mB/s broadband

If this is indeed classic shell related, we would love to get to the bottom of it:

Does it freeze reliably? IE every time you insert a disk?, or the first time after a restart? ect?
Are you sure that uninstalling classic shell, alone resolves this issue?
Does reinstalling classic shell re-introduce the issue?

As for the PC failing to boot; is it trying to boot from the disk? or still loading windows, but 'failing' part-way through.
If its trying to boot from the disk, this particular part of the issue is definitely unrelated to classic shell.

Yes this can be reproduced everytime 100%
If I have a DVD in the drive it fails to boot up.
I do not boot from DVD always boots up from HD, to selectively boot using DVD I can have to use the boot options via bios.
Once the OS boots up W8.1, I can reproduce the problem every time.

If I boot with Ubuntu 14.x I can read the DVD that W8.1 with Shell hangs up on.

When it hangs on Windows boot, it hangs at the point it is loading the user profile, so not sure the shell is interacting with the OS at that point.

When windows hangs like I described does that leave a crash dump.
This is what was left in the event log:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

Thanks for taking an interest in this problem, let me know if you need any more info etc.

_________________
ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX AMD 1100T 6 Core 3.3Ghz 16G Ram W8.1 64 Bit
MS Office 2013
Black Gold Dual Freeview Tuner
DVB-S (AzureWave AD-SP400) FreeSAT Tuner
Corsair Liquid Cooler HD60
Monitor=ZR24w
Sapphire R9 720X 2G DDR5
Virgin Media 50mB/s broadband

Sorry...can I ask a couple of questions.
Is there any way to control the shell (or turn it off)...for example does it run via a key in the registry. So I can turn it off whenever I need to till this issue is resolved. Is there any parameters for it at load time.

What about Safe mode ...is the shell active in safe mode. I have not had much time to try this out.

Thanks
Frank

_________________
ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX AMD 1100T 6 Core 3.3Ghz 16G Ram W8.1 64 Bit
MS Office 2013
Black Gold Dual Freeview Tuner
DVB-S (AzureWave AD-SP400) FreeSAT Tuner
Corsair Liquid Cooler HD60
Monitor=ZR24w
Sapphire R9 720X 2G DDR5
Virgin Media 50mB/s broadband

Task manager>Startup>Disable classic start menu
This should work for the start button portion (then run classic shell settings to start it up)

OR
Classic shell settings> Start automatically for this user
Uncheck that

Also It should be mentioned that Ivo (The developer) is on vacation I believe.. and should be back in a week or 3..
Try uninstalling, and re-installing only the start menu component, to try eliminating the other 2 parts from the equation.
Then try windows 7 style if you are currently using classic with 2 columns, or vise versa..

Also try 'reset all settings' after saving your .xml to the desktop to see if that corrects the problem

There is no reason Classic Shell should interfere with optical drive operation. Still, if you are not convinced, you can exit the Start Menu component by right clicking the Start button -> Exit. The Explorer components can be disabled from Control Panel -> Internet Options -> Programs tab -> Manage add-ons (Set Classic Explorer bar and BHO addons to Disable). Thereafter, check if your optical drive still behaves erratically. If it still does, then it means Classic Shell isn't the cause of the issue.

You can also try temporarily uninstalling Classic Shell, it will preserve your settings and menu customizations.

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Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

Hi, I have solved the problem with the DVD drive. In the end it turned out to be a problem with the Microsoft drivers for JMicron IDE/SATA chip. On my motherboard SABERTOOTH 990FX I have 2 controller chips, the 6GB/s chip which has 6 SATA connectors and the JMicron which has 2. Once I plugged the DVD drive onto the main STA controller it worked fine.

I have seen comments on other forums that the JMicron device will work with the W7 driver.

Thanks everyone for the help and suggestions.

_________________
ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX AMD 1100T 6 Core 3.3Ghz 16G Ram W8.1 64 Bit
MS Office 2013
Black Gold Dual Freeview Tuner
DVB-S (AzureWave AD-SP400) FreeSAT Tuner
Corsair Liquid Cooler HD60
Monitor=ZR24w
Sapphire R9 720X 2G DDR5
Virgin Media 50mB/s broadband