Windows Found.000 folder

[Neto]

Asking for advice concerning a new computer that was shipped back to me for repair.

[Putting this in the tech forum, but it's mostly a 'moral question'.]

It started logging into the user account very slowly. The entire Program Files (X86) folder had been moved to a Found.000 folder.

I had shipped the system out on May 28th, and the time stamp on the Found-000 folder was 06-11-2025. After the computer arrived back, I did extensive testing on the Seagate HDD, using the Seagate SeaTools test environment. After running a couple of short tests, I ran a more thorough one that generally takes around 6 hours, so a pretty dependable test. I don't charge for the time on these long tests, since I just start it and go do something else. Total time for service work was 2 hours and 45 minutes. (This includes the short drive tests, running the memory test, wiping the drive, then re-imaging and installing requested programs.)

Here is the Google 'first response AI answer' for possible causes: (The rest of the hits are mostly about deleting the folder, etc.)

A "FOUND.000" folder, usually hidden, is created by Windows' chkdsk (Check Disk) utility when it detects and attempts to recover corrupted or fragmented file data. This folder contains .CHK files, which are essentially segments of files that could not be fully recovered. These files are fragments of data that were lost or corrupted during a file system error, often caused by unexpected shutdowns, power outages, or improper ejection of storage devices.

So my question is for input from you all. Should I charge for this work and the return shipping costs (including shipping insurance), only the shipping expenses, or take the loss?

Thank you all for any advice you care to offer, especially if you also run a service business.

[R7ehr]

I don’t perfectly understand the question.

[Neto]

I don’t perfectly understand the question.

As a Christian businessman, I'm asking for advice as to whether I should charge for the service work I did on this job, and for the return shipping expenses I incurred.

I do have a warranty on the computers I build, but there were no faulty components involved. The customer told me that he has a battery back up system, and was not aware of any power outages. The Windows ChkDsk process ran, and at least thought it found corrupted files, and moved whole system folders into a Found.000 folder, making the contents of those folders inaccessible. Power failure or improper shut-down are common causes for this, and the Found.000 folder date-stamp indicates that it was caused by an event at least 10 days after the computer was delivered.

[JohnH]

I don’t perfectly understand the question.

As a Christian businessman, I'm asking for advice as to whether I should charge for the service work I did on this job, and for the return shipping expenses I incurred.

I do have a warranty on the computers I build, but there were no faulty components involved. The customer told me that he has a battery back up system, and was not aware of any power outages. The Windows ChkDsk process ran, and at least thought it found corrupted files, and moved whole system folders into a Found.000 folder, making the contents of those folders inaccessible. Power failure or improper shut-down are common causes for this, and the Found.000 folder date-stamp indicates that it was caused by an event at least 10 days after the computer was delivered.

I wouldn't charge for the service time, but would for the shipping charges, as I think that's a fair way to share the risk. I would advise the customer to switch to an SSD. I assume this system was NTFS, not FAT32. I would probably also recommend a reinstall since I doubt that system will remain stable in other ways, but it sounds like you already did the reinstall.

[ken_sylvania]

I don’t perfectly understand the question.

As a Christian businessman, I'm asking for advice as to whether I should charge for the service work I did on this job, and for the return shipping expenses I incurred.

I do have a warranty on the computers I build, but there were no faulty components involved. The customer told me that he has a battery back up system, and was not aware of any power outages. The Windows ChkDsk process ran, and at least thought it found corrupted files, and moved whole system folders into a Found.000 folder, making the contents of those folders inaccessible. Power failure or improper shut-down are common causes for this, and the Found.000 folder date-stamp indicates that it was caused by an event at least 10 days after the computer was delivered.

Did you check the system logs in Event Viewer for any unexpected shutdowns, reboots without clean shutdown, etc? Also did you attempt any recovery of the contents of the Found.000 folder to get a possible idea of their source? Edit: Looking back at the original question I see you answered this already.

[R7ehr]

I don’t perfectly understand the question.

As a Christian businessman, I'm asking for advice as to whether I should charge for the service work I did on this job, and for the return shipping expenses I incurred.

I do have a warranty on the computers I build, but there were no faulty components involved. The customer told me that he has a battery back up system, and was not aware of any power outages. The Windows ChkDsk process ran, and at least thought it found corrupted files, and moved whole system folders into a Found.000 folder, making the contents of those folders inaccessible. Power failure or improper shut-down are common causes for this, and the Found.000 folder date-stamp indicates that it was caused by an event at least 10 days after the computer was delivered.

There is seldom any obligation to charge. In other words, it is perfectly fine to do any or all of it for free.
That said, I see nothing ethically problematic about charging for everything here. Instead of this being a serious ethical dilemma, I would rather consider it a mere business dilemma. I’d probably make my decision on whether or not charging or not charging is better for my business.

Does charging leave a bad taste in my customers mouth? If so, don’t charge.

But does not charging (probably not in this case) encourage (realistically, not theoretically) cause my customers to practice more bad or lazy behavior that they then have expect me to “fix” for them for free? Or is this the 9th time this has happened? If so, I think it they should be charged.

[Ken]

Businesses frequently compensate people or eat costs that weren't their fault in the name of providing good customer service. For example, I recently broke a part on a Kreg woodworking jig and they shipped me a new one for free and even paid for the shipping. Did they have to do that? NO. Did the gesture turn me into a loyal customer in the future? YES, absolutely.

There is a line between providing good customer service and being taken advantage of. You just have to figure out where it is for your business.

[ken_sylvania]

As to the repair itself, I wouldn't feel good about charging the customer for it unless I had better evidence that it was caused by something the customer did. For instance, if the logs showed evidence of a power loss at around the time this happened. What you've described so far, to me, is inconclusive as to whether it could have been a software or hardware fault of some kind or whether it was environment or user caused. I typically lean toward repairs to an almost new machine as something that I should warrant unless I can conclusively prove that the issue was customer caused.

As to the shipping - that probably depends somewhat on the language of your warranty. If you make it clear to your customers at time of sale that you are warrantying the product but only if they cover shipping both ways for repair, I think it's perfectly reasonable to charge for the shipping. If that is not clearly stated, or if you normally cover shipping, I'd be more hesitant to charge for it. I think there is room to call the customer and discuss the situation with him and see what he thinks is fair.

[Neto]

I don’t perfectly understand the question.

As a Christian businessman, I'm asking for advice as to whether I should charge for the service work I did on this job, and for the return shipping expenses I incurred.

I do have a warranty on the computers I build, but there were no faulty components involved. The customer told me that he has a battery back up system, and was not aware of any power outages. The Windows ChkDsk process ran, and at least thought it found corrupted files, and moved whole system folders into a Found.000 folder, making the contents of those folders inaccessible. Power failure or improper shut-down are common causes for this, and the Found.000 folder date-stamp indicates that it was caused by an event at least 10 days after the computer was delivered.

I wouldn't charge for the service time, but would for the shipping charges, as I think that's a fair way to share the risk. I would advise the customer to switch to an SSD. I assume this system was NTFS, not FAT32. I would probably also recommend a reinstall since I doubt that system will remain stable in other ways, but it sounds like you already did the reinstall.

Thank you for your response/advice.

The way I made out the invoice at first was as you suggest here - to charge for the shipping, but not for any of the service time.

Upgrading to an SSD is an option that is offered at the time an order is placed.

When an SSD is installed, I personally recommend an SSD as the primary drive, and an HDD as the secondary drive. This is what Western Digital recommends, and it is supported by comparative manufacturer testing for both HDDs and SSDs - - HDDs survive more write-rewrite cycles than do SSDs. In the 15 + years I've been building word processors and computers, my experiences with drive failures also tell me that an SSD failure is generally w/o any warning signs, and is usually a total failure (as in, not possible to retrieve any files by connecting the failed drive as a secondary disk), whereas an impending HDD failure will produce pre-failure indications. I always stress frequent backups as well, but you can guess how that goes. Sometimes very well, sometimes not at all.

[Neto]

I don’t perfectly understand the question.

As a Christian businessman, I'm asking for advice as to whether I should charge for the service work I did on this job, and for the return shipping expenses I incurred.

I do have a warranty on the computers I build, but there were no faulty components involved. The customer told me that he has a battery back up system, and was not aware of any power outages. The Windows ChkDsk process ran, and at least thought it found corrupted files, and moved whole system folders into a Found.000 folder, making the contents of those folders inaccessible. Power failure or improper shut-down are common causes for this, and the Found.000 folder date-stamp indicates that it was caused by an event at least 10 days after the computer was delivered.

Did you check the system logs in Event Viewer for any unexpected shutdowns, reboots without clean shutdown, etc? Also did you attempt any recovery of the contents of the Found.000 folder to get a possible idea of their source? Edit: Looking back at the original question I see you answered this already.

Thanks for your advice.

I didn't include all of my diagnostic reports in the initial post, but the Start Menu was not responsive. (Both right and left clicks resulted in no response. It was very slow to log in, but that was all it would do. Since the Start Menu was unresponsive, I had to force it off by holding down the power button. I have attempted to access Event Viewer records from a disk that failed to boot up (by copying things into a working system), but that didn't work. If there is a way to access these records on an unresponsive system, I do not know what it is. (There are a LOT of things I don't know. Seems like more every day....)