For some unknown reason, all of a sudden I can't save anything to my PC! I am running Vista Ultimate 32-bit (legit).
For example, my anti virus (avast) reports an error updating due to "access denied" - when I try to download a file in Firefox I get an error "XXXX could not be saved, because of an unknown error", when I open a JPG in Photoshop, make a change, and then try to save it I get "could not save XXX because of a disk error" etc. It doesn't seem to matter where I try to save/install files to.
Interestingly, I *can* download files using Internet Explorer, but if I try run any kind of install, the moment file copy operations are about to begin I get similar errors about being unable to write. This is both running with and without administrative privileges. I can also use Windows Explorer to copy files from USB drives to the desktop, etc. and from one directory to another with no problem.
The only changes (that I am aware of) that I have made to my system recently were to add (legit) copies of webroot spysweeper and Comodo Firewall. However, both of those were installed more than a week ago and this situation just started today. As far as I know I didn't ever select some box about blocking every program from writing! I have tried disabling both SpySweeper and Comodo Firewall (and also rebooting without having them load) and it has no effect.
The only other oddity I noticed recently was that Firefox - for no apparent reason - started giving me "unresponsive script" errors on almost every web page and grinding to a halt. I ended up reinstalling FF and it is no longer a problem.
NOTE - SpySweeper *is* able to update itself without incident, and if I boot into safe mode the problem is gone.
NOTE - Out of frustration and curiosity I uninstalled both Comodo and Webroot without any effect.
Any suggestions about how/where to start looking to hunt down this problem would be REALLY appreciated.
Thanks,
Aaron
For example, my anti virus (avast) reports an error updating due to "access denied" - when I try to download a file in Firefox I get an error "XXXX could not be saved, because of an unknown error", when I open a JPG in Photoshop, make a change, and then try to save it I get "could not save XXX because of a disk error" etc. It doesn't seem to matter where I try to save/install files to.
Interestingly, I *can* download files using Internet Explorer, but if I try run any kind of install, the moment file copy operations are about to begin I get similar errors about being unable to write. This is both running with and without administrative privileges. I can also use Windows Explorer to copy files from USB drives to the desktop, etc. and from one directory to another with no problem.
The only changes (that I am aware of) that I have made to my system recently were to add (legit) copies of webroot spysweeper and Comodo Firewall. However, both of those were installed more than a week ago and this situation just started today. As far as I know I didn't ever select some box about blocking every program from writing! I have tried disabling both SpySweeper and Comodo Firewall (and also rebooting without having them load) and it has no effect.
The only other oddity I noticed recently was that Firefox - for no apparent reason - started giving me "unresponsive script" errors on almost every web page and grinding to a halt. I ended up reinstalling FF and it is no longer a problem.
NOTE - SpySweeper *is* able to update itself without incident, and if I boot into safe mode the problem is gone.
NOTE - Out of frustration and curiosity I uninstalled both Comodo and Webroot without any effect.
Any suggestions about how/where to start looking to hunt down this problem would be REALLY appreciated.
Thanks,
Aaron