Have you ever encountered an unknown FOUND.000 directory on your hard drive or even on removable media during an incorrect shutdown? What kind of folder is this, most ordinary or novice users do not know, and some even consider it to be a place where virus threats have penetrated the system. Let's try to figure this out. Running a little ahead, everyone can be encouraged, since the directory described below and its analogues (FOUND.001, 002, etc.) are not viruses and can appear in the system for only one single reason.
FOUND.000: what is this folder?
Let's start with a description of what this strange object is, because it is its purpose that partially sheds light on why it suddenly and for no apparent reason appears in the system on a hard drive or on a regular flash drive.
If we are talking about HDD hard drives and SSD solid state drives, usually this directory appears only when the computer terminal or laptop is restarted, which was preceded by an incorrect shutdown. This could happen, for example, when a sudden power outage due to power failure.
When rebooting, the operating system starts an automatic check of the disk (system partition) using the built-in CHKDSK tool and tries to automatically fix the errors and failures found (in the latest versions, the hidden mode is used). Where is the information about “bad” blocks and corrupted data stored? Right! To the FOUND.000 catalog. What this folder is is a little clear. For more complete information, you can simply open the desired directory and look at its contents.
CHK format files will be presented there. They can contain information about damaged blocks, and be fragments of damaged data. Thus, it is not difficult to realize that if such a directory is found, it is not worth deleting it right away without figuring out what practical benefits can be derived from its contents.
Folders FOUND.000, 001, etc. appeared on removable media: what is the reason?
As for removable drives, for example, in the form of the most common flash drives, such directories can appear for the same reason, due to unauthorized shutdown of the computer, improper removal of the device from the port, and even when checking the storage medium when using the manual launch of the toolkit Windows, which is called in the "Explorer" through the properties section on the service tab.
Note: usually the user is not aware of the presence of such directories, since they are hidden, and questions begin only after the free space on the disk or removable drive begins to catastrophically decrease. To see the directories in the same “Explorer”, you need to enable the display of hidden objects in the view settings (in Windows 10, you can do this quite simply by checking the corresponding item in the main panel).
What practical benefits can be derived from files in a directory?
What is this folder - FOUND.000 & ndash ;, sorted out. Now let's see how it is possible to use it to recover lost information that could be damaged. Quite an interesting thing is noted by many users on forums on the Internet. Since many of the files stored in such directories are fragments of corrupted data, some use a little trick to return the original but lost data. They simply rename some objects, changing the extension (for example, in JPG when the memory cards of the cameras are damaged), and in this way they return the lost information. But these are isolated cases.
Usually, it is almost impossible to recover information from the FOUND.000 folder without using special utilities like FileCHK, Un-CHK, CHK-Mate, CHK-Back and their analogues, if only because the original components in the form of FILE000.CHK files are a kind of archives , which contains data on damaged files (including system files, if it comes to the computer’s hard drive).
Can a FOUND.000 object be deleted?
Thus, if it is impossible to restore information from the detected directory, the logical question arises: is it possible to delete the FOUND.000 folder without harming the system? By and large, if, in your opinion, corrupted data is of no particular value to you, you can get rid of this directory (s) without problems. In the case of the possible presence of information regarding system files in the directory, there is nothing wrong either, since the CHKDSK disk check utility has already worked on the errors, fixed them and partially restored the damaged objects. Only those remained in the catalog that cannot be restored using the system.
The easiest way to delete the FOUND.000 directory and its analogs from removable drives
If the object you are looking for is located on a removable drive, you can delete the FOUND.000 folder on a USB flash drive using the most common formatting, using either a clear table of contents or full formatting. If other important information is on the device, it must first be copied or transferred to another location.
If the system displays a message that the running process cannot be completed or completed, you can use special low-level formatting programs like HDD LLFT, which ignore restrictions on access to protected or hidden objects.
What should I do if the directory is not deleted by standard methods?
Everything seems to be simple. But you will not format the entire system or logical partition if the desired directory is located on the hard drive to get rid of one or more directories ?! It’s worth mentioning right away that usually such directories themselves, as well as some files that are in them, simply cannot be deleted in the “Explorer”.
As the simplest solution, you can use the popular Unlocker utility, which embeds its own command in the Explorer menu of the RMB. By launching the applet through RMB on the selected object, you just need to select the removal from the list of actions. If this does not work, you may first have to perform an unlock with the completion of all active processes that are using the directory at the moment, and delete only after that.