I really don't understand what caused this to start happening. I haven't installed or uninstalled ANYTHING in weeks. When I try to cut, copy, paste or delete files using hotkeys, right-click, drag-n-drop or a WIZARD, in explorer or otherwise, such as FreeCommander, the program doing the cutting and whatnot freezes. The only exceptions are TeraCopy and the console, and with teracopy only when I use it standalone - it freezes as well as zeplorer when it's hijacking the copy function. It also happens when I hit win+E and when I right click on anything in Explorer. Security Center is also reporting Avast! as off, when in the system tray, running the UI and in ProcessExplorer and Belarc Advisor, it's clearly on and functioning.

When it first happened, I just opened ProcessExplorer (I have it set to hijack the normal task manager) and restarted explorer.exe. When that didn't do it, I deleted explorer.exe, restarted and expanded a fresh copy from the I386 folder in WINDOWS. That didn't do it, so I ran avast!, spybot, and when those did nothing, RegSeeker. After these, I downloaded the few hotfixes from Microsoft I hadn't and restarted, which did nothing. I tried system restoring to before the freeze started happening, but all system restores failed - I'm guessing because they couldn't move or copy files. I've also run chkdsk /f a couple of times, but it's finding nothing wrong.

Here's a bunch of data for you:

Belarc Advisor output -

Operating System System Model
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (build 2600)
INSTALL Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United States) Hewlett-Packard Presario V5000 (RG324UA#ABA) F.43
System Serial Number: ************
Enclosure Type: Notebook
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
2.00 gigahertz AMD Mobile Sempron
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
Not hyper-threaded Board: Hewlett-Packard 30AE 49.56
Serial Number: ************
BIOS: Hewlett-Packard F.43 08/18/2006
Drives Memory Modules c,d
60.00 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
20.16 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

GDI CyberDrive SCSI CdRom Device [CD-ROM drive]
GDI CyberDrive SCSI CdRom Device [CD-ROM drive]
TSSTcorp CDW/DVD TS-L462D [CD-ROM drive]

WDC WD600UE-22KVT0 [Hard drive] (60.01 GB) -- drive 0, s/n WD-WXE506387642, rev 01.03K01, SMART Status: Healthy 384 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'JP11' is Empty
Slot 'JP30' has 512 MB
Local Drive Volumes


c: (NTFS on drive 0) 60.00 GB 20.16 GB free
Network Drives
None detected
_______________________________________ _____________________
HJT output -
Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.2
Scan saved at 9:06:38 PM, on 9/14/2010
Platform: Windows XP SP3 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v8.00 (8.00.6001.18702)
Boot mode: Normal

Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\csrss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\Ati2evxx.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\Program Files\COMODO\COMODO Internet Security\cmdagent.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast5\AvastSvc.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\Ati2evxx.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\mscorsvw.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\alg.exe
C:\WINDOWS\VistaDrive\VistaDrive.exe
C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI Control Panel\atiptaxx.exe
C:\Program Files\COMODO\COMODO Internet Security\cfp.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\ALWILS~1\Avast5\avastUI.exe
C:\Program Files\PeerBlock\peerblock.exe
C:\Program Files\LClock\LClock.exe
C:\PROGRAM FILES\PX\PROCEXP.EXE
C:\Program Files\Mozilla\Firefox\firefox.exe
C:\Program Files\Mozilla\Firefox\plugin-container.exe
C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis\HijackThis.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\wmiprvse.exe

R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
O2 - BHO: (no name) - AutorunsDisabled - (no file)
O2 - BHO: Java(tm) Plug-In 2 SSV Helper - {DBC80044-A445-435b-BC74-9C25C1C588A9} - C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jp2ssv.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [VistaDrive] C:\WINDOWS\VistaDrive\VistaDrive.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [IMJPMIG8.1] "C:\WINDOWS\IME\imjp8_1\IMJPMIG.EXE" /Spoil /RemAdvDef /Migration32
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [MSPY2002] C:\WINDOWS\system32\IME\PINTLGNT\ImScInst.exe /SYNC
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [PHIME2002ASync] C:\WINDOWS\system32\IME\TINTLGNT\TINTSETP.EXE /SYNC
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [PHIME2002A] C:\WINDOWS\system32\IME\TINTLGNT\TINTSETP.EXE /IMEName
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SynTPEnh] C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [ATIPTA] "C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI Control Panel\atiptaxx.exe"
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [COMODO Internet Security] "C:\Program Files\COMODO\COMODO Internet Security\cfp.exe" -h
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [avast5] C:\PROGRA~1\ALWILS~1\Avast5\avastUI.exe /nogui
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [PeerBlock] C:\Program Files\PeerBlock\peerblock.exe
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [LClock] C:\Program Files\LClock\LClock.exe
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\RunOnce: [nltide_3] rundll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSectionEx nLite.inf,C,,4,N (User 'LOCAL SERVICE')
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-20\..\RunOnce: [nltide_3] rundll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSectionEx nLite.inf,C,,4,N (User 'NETWORK SERVICE')
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-18\..\RunOnce: [nltide_3] rundll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSectionEx nLite.inf,C,,4,N (User 'SYSTEM')
O4 - HKUS\.DEFAULT\..\RunOnce: [nltide_3] rundll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSectionEx nLite.inf,C,,4,N (User 'Default user')
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - AutorunsDisabled - (no file)
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {e2e2dd38-d088-4134-82b7-f2ba38496583} - C:\WINDOWS\Network Diagnostic\xpnetdiag.exe
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: @xpsp3res.dll,-20001 - {e2e2dd38-d088-4134-82b7-f2ba38496583} - C:\WINDOWS\Network Diagnostic\xpnetdiag.exe
O20 - AppInit_DLLs: C:\WINDOWS\system32\guard32.dll
O23 - Service: Ati HotKey Poller - ATI Technologies Inc. - C:\WINDOWS\system32\Ati2evxx.exe
O23 - Service: avast! Antivirus - AVAST Software - C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast5\AvastSvc.exe
O23 - Service: avast! Web Scanner - AVAST Software - C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast5\AvastSvc.exe
O23 - Service: COMODO Internet Security Helper Service (cmdAgent) - COMODO - C:\Program Files\COMODO\COMODO Internet Security\cmdagent.exe


Thanks for your time.