Hi!
Sorry its taken me a while to post back on here, I had no idea that I had some responses.
Not sure if I can give the persons name who helped me out... however they were great, really helpful and very patient.
What appeared to be my particular issue was the installation of CCleaner. Apparently "optimisers" are not really optimal!
So yeah, if you're having issues that don't seem to resolve, it may be worth just checking to see if you're running something like CCleaner and just getting rid of that.