Windows XP - found.000 folder on external drive, access denied, can't delete and there's no Security Tab

Question

I tried to run a disk defragmentation, but it said there is this folder called found.000, corrupted, on my external hard drive (FAT32), it came after a chkdsk, when I try to access it, it says "access denied", I can't delete it, and there is one more thing: There's no Security Tab when I right click it.

Actually, there is no security tab in any folder on any external unit (SD card, HDD, PEN DRIVE, etc), my windows only display the security tab on local disc's folders.

I'm using Windows XP Pro SP3. Neither Unlocker could be able to delete that folder.

Answer 1

The fact there's no Security tab is normal: FAT32 file systems don't support access control lists, and can't track the file owner either.

Since the issue is related to file system corruption, you should backup your data now, in case you didn't already. When you're done, boot any Linux live distribution, and try exploring the found.000 folder from there.

Your hard drive manufacturer may have diagnostic utility available for download on the official website. Consider getting the latest version to check your drive health.

Additional information

Chkdsk might not recover all files, and files that are recovered might be internally corrupted. Therefore, you must protect important data by performing periodic backups.

If Windows XP Professional cannot identify the folder or if the folder does not exist, it saves each chain of lost clusters in a folder called Found.xxx, where xxx is a sequential number starting with 000. If no folder Found.000 exists, one is created at the root. If one or more sequential folders called Found.xxx (starting at 000) exist, a folder that uses the next number in the sequence is created.

After the storage folder has been identified or created, one or more files with a name in the format Filennnn.chk are saved. (The first saved file is named File0000.chk, the second is named File0001.chk, and so on in sequence.) When Chkdsk finishes, you can examine the contents of these files [...].

_{Troubleshooting Disks and File Systems}