lots of view problems......folders empty, my computer etc.

Got this problem pretty early on, but for some reason, in the last few weeks, its really become a major annoyance.

When I open certain folders, the folder will say empty, even though I know there is stuff in there.
Sometimes when I click on my computer, it will show nothing....no drives...and its even done this with the control panel.
I use music software which scans a vst folder for the dll files of plugins, then lists all of them.....I then tick all the ones I want to use, and its supposed to stay set like that, but the other day, it deleted this list. I can still use them, but they are no longer visible on this list.
Accompanying all this misreading of folders is the green bar at the top of the windows, which scans and takes a long time

Things I have tried :

Changing file icons via properties / customize , and setting to general content.
Ive run sfc/scannow 4 times and it says windows resources found corrupt files but could not fix them, and details were in cbs.log, which i cannot open.
Ive run a full system scan with avast and malware bytes, and both came up with nothing

The problem got worse around the same kinda time that I installed a native instruments komplete 6 audio intercace, though im not sure if its directly connected.
I had audio latency problems with this interface and took it back to the store and replaced it for an akai EIE pro interface, but these search / view problems continue , and other things are becoming slower as well , like net pages.

I am currently trying to refresh windows 8, and tried before but windows said it was unable to do it.
It is now on a page that says "preparing to refresh your pc" and has said that for an hour at least

Im using an asus 2.8ghz machine with 4gb of ram. Its quad core intel , and is running windows 8 64bit .

Please, someone kindly help sort this out.

Thanks in advance.

Try the suggestion here. Worked for me: Slow Explorer progress bar on large folder

Edit: Sorry, answered the first part of your question, not the refresh problem.

Get a Windows 8.1 ISO to reinstall with, see here: Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 ISO - Download or Create

The updated Option One shows you how to use a Microsoft provided tool (mediacreationtool.exe) to download any version of 8.1 for either 32 or 64 bit, regardless of what computer (bit wise) you are running from. Make sure you get the one that matches what you currently have.

Mediacreationtool must be run from a Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 computer.

Once you have it (install DVD or flash drive), backup your data. Things can and often do go wrong so having a backup is never a wasted effort.

Then read here: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2299-clean-install-windows-8-a.html

Once all is working correctly, get an external USB hard drive then use Macrium Reflect Free to make an image backup to it. That way you have everything backed up and can restore anything you need from it. Good tutorial by whs here:

Imaging with free Macrium

You said you ran sfc.
Did you run-

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

then sfc ?

In addition to the suggestion above I would also run chkdsk /r to see if it finds and tries to repair any file system errors. I dont know that it would make much of a difference, but I would do that before the DISM and the SFC commands.

CHKDSK C: /R
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow

Is the order I would use. chkdsk will ask you to restart the computer so it can exclusive access to the C: drive. Restart it and let it run its scan, then continue with the next to commands.