I have owned an Acer Aspire laptop (Core i7 processor, Windows 8.1) for about two years.
One day two weeks ago Windows failed to load so I restarted. This time Windows loaded and everything seemed fine; however I soon began to notice that certain programs would not launch. This has remained the case ever since.
Some symptoms that suddenly appeared:
1) I can't run Task Manager (upon attempting to launch it states "Windows cannot access C:\WINDOWS\system32\taskmgr.exe"). When I click "diagnose", it says "An error occurred while troubleshooting: A problem is preventing the troubleshooter from starting.". Error code: 0x80070005. Same when I try to access the registry ("Windows cannot access C:\WINDOWS\regedit.exe").
2) Explorer is working and I can browse the hard drive, but bizarrely I can't access the top folder. When I try it says "C:\ is not accessible. Access is denied." Yet I can still access subdirectories, e.g. C:\WINDOWS.
3) I can't clear cache files, etc, as CCleaner won't run (trying to launch immediately returns the message "CCleaner.exe has stopped working"), and neither will Windows Disk Clean-up ("Disk Clean-up cannot clean up drive C:\. Make sure there is a disk in the drive.").
4) When I connect my tablet the tablet card is not displayed in Explorer and I get a message on the tablet device saying that it can't detect any software that can access it.
I have no particular reason to think that I have a virus. Windows Defender real-time protection is on and a full scan revealed nothing. Neither Anti-Malware nor Spybot will load.
I can still use some applications without any apparent problems, e.g. Firefox, Media Player Classic.
I have continued to install Windows updates.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks in advance!
One day two weeks ago Windows failed to load so I restarted. This time Windows loaded and everything seemed fine; however I soon began to notice that certain programs would not launch. This has remained the case ever since.
Some symptoms that suddenly appeared:
1) I can't run Task Manager (upon attempting to launch it states "Windows cannot access C:\WINDOWS\system32\taskmgr.exe"). When I click "diagnose", it says "An error occurred while troubleshooting: A problem is preventing the troubleshooter from starting.". Error code: 0x80070005. Same when I try to access the registry ("Windows cannot access C:\WINDOWS\regedit.exe").
2) Explorer is working and I can browse the hard drive, but bizarrely I can't access the top folder. When I try it says "C:\ is not accessible. Access is denied." Yet I can still access subdirectories, e.g. C:\WINDOWS.
3) I can't clear cache files, etc, as CCleaner won't run (trying to launch immediately returns the message "CCleaner.exe has stopped working"), and neither will Windows Disk Clean-up ("Disk Clean-up cannot clean up drive C:\. Make sure there is a disk in the drive.").
4) When I connect my tablet the tablet card is not displayed in Explorer and I get a message on the tablet device saying that it can't detect any software that can access it.
I have no particular reason to think that I have a virus. Windows Defender real-time protection is on and a full scan revealed nothing. Neither Anti-Malware nor Spybot will load.
I can still use some applications without any apparent problems, e.g. Firefox, Media Player Classic.
I have continued to install Windows updates.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks in advance!