Hey Wizzoboy, I've already tried that! I knew I forgot to add some things to the list of stuff I already tried. But thank you for the suggestion.
Darryl --
My partitions are strange I know, this laptop used to have a regular HDD in it, but I replaced it with a SSD. That was long ago, and the cloning process left behind some strange partitions. I think there is backup/repair/boot information on some or all of them, so I'm reluctant to delete them. None of those were changed before or after this problem started occurring. The drive labeled Windows8 is actually my main partition, running Windows 10.
Laptop does not have a CD/DVD drive on it.
I honestly cannot think of anything that changed. I've gone through my list of installed programs and whatnot and I don't see anything that gives off a red flag to me.
Anti-virus was completely disabled, and I even tried uninstalling it and trying a different anti-virus. Also tried disabling Windows Defender/Firewall.
Already tried trashing prefs/db
As far as the "whole SSD" passing disk verify -- how can I do that? If I right click a partition>properties>tools>Check, is that sufficient? I've done that to all the partitions and no errors were found.
Checking Windows event log was a good idea, I forgot this existed. I found a lot of copies of the following error that are spaced out around every 30ish seconds during the time I was testing Pro Tools again last night. This must be related to what I'm experiencing, but I don't know how to read this to tell what's wrong. Here it is copied and pasted:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Faulting application name: ProTools.exe, version: 10.3.4.181, time stamp: 0x51330148
Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00000000
Faulting process id: 0x23bc
Faulting application start time: 0x01d103e2223c4118
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Avid\Pro Tools\ProTools.exe
Faulting module path: unknown
Report Id: a5b8ccd0-ff9f-4676-9d8f-8434e661edca
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is what's listed under the "details" tab of the same error:
- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
<Provider Name="Application Error" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>100</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2015-10-11T05:05:36.000000000Z" />
<EventRecordID>14373</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>Matthew</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
- <EventData>
<Data>ProTools.exe</Data>
<Data>10.3.4.181</Data>
<Data>51330148</Data>
<Data>unknown</Data>
<Data>0.0.0.0</Data>
<Data>00000000</Data>
<Data>c0000005</Data>
<Data>00000000</Data>
<Data>23bc</Data>
<Data>01d103e2223c4118</Data>
<Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\Avid\Pro Tools\ProTools.exe</Data>
<Data>unknown</Data>
<Data>a5b8ccd0-ff9f-4676-9d8f-8434e661edca</Data>
<Data />
<Data />
</EventData>
</Event>