What are FOUND.xxx folders? Can I delete them?

A

Adam

There are a number of folders on my Win XP Pro system drive called FOUND.000,
FOUND.001 etc. SOme are empty and some contain a file called FILE000x.CHK.
What are they? Do I need them? Can I delete them?

Thanks!

Adam
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

There are a number of folders on my Win XP Pro system drive called FOUND.000,
FOUND.001 etc. SOme are empty and some contain a file called FILE000x.CHK.
What are they? Do I need them? Can I delete them?


They are files created by chkdsk when it fixes errors on your drive.
They are typically lost fragments or pieces of crosslinked files.

Rather than just deleting them, chkdsk saves them like this. In
theory, if the files they used to be part of are otherwise lost, you
*might* be able to recover some important information there. In
practice, unless they are text files, they are almost certainly
useless, and even if they are text files, they are probably only parts
of the files. I have personally *never* found anything of any use in
one of these files.

Unless these files are very recent, they are certainly useless by now,
and you can delete them. If they were just created, you might want to
look at them first with notepad, just to be sure you aren't deleting
something that might be useful; but even then, it's still unlikely
that there's anything there you can make use of.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top