New to the forum, and sorry I have to be joining under these circumstances.
Four days ago Spybot S&D asked me (randomly) if I wanted to allow the program acxwormesn.exe access to the internet. I denied it, and have had problems since. I tried running Spybot after that and it would scan for a few seconds, then close off. Now it won't even run, saying "Windows cannot access the specified device/path or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access them." The same thing would happen to McAfee, the scan would close down after a few seconds. Then no more access to it. Malwarebytes has the same results unfortunately.
Firefox would only allow me to load google. Searches would yield legit results, but upon clicking those results would go to bogus advertisement sites. I removed firefox and somehow now IE is gone too. Google Chrome appears unaffected.
I don't get random popups or advertisements.
I have tried all scans and installs through safe mode. In a fresh install, Malwarebytes will run, but will only scan for a second before closing. Any further attempt to run results in "Windows cannot access the specified device/path or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access them."
I was ready to cut my losses and just reinstall windows. Upon trying this, windows is unable to locate the C:\ drive for install. I checked the Bios and the drive is there...
Tried running RootRepeal and it ran for a few seconds on the scan before closing itself down.
Can anyone offer any help?