Illustrator CS3 freezes when saving or opening ANY files

Yesterday while running Illustrator (13.0.0), Photoshop and AfterEffects (CS3 for all), Illustrator suddenly started hanging (spinning beachball) when I tried to save a small file. Subsequently noticed it would no longer open files, or save any other files - always spinning the beachball when opening or saving. Force-quitting says "Illustrator not responding".
I trashed Illustrator prefs - same problem.
I re-booted - same problem.
Updated to 13.0.1 - same problem.
No problem saving/opening files in other apps.
Also tried running a previous install of Illustrator CS2, and now THAT has the same save/open beachball spinning problem, too! I've gotta get this running.
Don't know what to try next, short of a complete re-install.
Been running all CS3 apps trouble-free for 4.5 months, nothing new installed, no new fonts.
Any suggestions?
Mac OS 10.4.1, Dual 2.7 PPC G5, 4.5 GB RAM

Donna - Fortunately I did get Illustrator saving and opening again, unfortunately I'm not exactly sure what solved the problem. I went through the routine of dumping prefs a few times, restarting, etc., but also added a string of expletives along the way, and eventually the thing just started to work again.
I think the solution had to do with the expletives, but I can't remember the exact order in which I screamed them.
Wish I could be of more help.

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