D2089515327.

no it doesnt
and i have tried restarting my computer

just did that . but still the same

Also, is this a standard local hard drive?

I'm not sure what's going on here. We haven't seen this before. It shouldn't actually get to the point where it's throwing an error if '8IKM4M55' doesn't exist in your 'storage' directory.

You can try creating a '8IKM4M55' directory manually, though that shouldn't be necessary. Also check your disk for errors.

And check again that you've completely disabled any security software, since that's the most likely culprit for weird issues like this.

I linked to instructions above.

http://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data

OK, well, that's the problem. Check your disk.

Check your hard disk for errors. If you need help with that you'll need to ask somewhere else, though, because this isn't a Zotero issue.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Check-your-hard-disk-for-errors