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

[Guest 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

[Guest ju.c]

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

 

They are check disk (chkdsk) recovered files. Go ahead and delete 'em.

 

 

ju.c

 

 

"Adam" <Adam@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:7A624A06-1D7D-4EB2-BEFB-F62E745AF2B5@microsoft.com...

> 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

[Guest Ken Blake, MVP]

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

 

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 01:01:00 -0700, Adam

<Adam@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

> 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.

 

--

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

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