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I'm struggling with, it seems, basic task: I have an old HDD with Windows 7 & plenty of data, and I want to move some of it to my new SSD drive with Windows 8. So I took Windows 8 SSD drive, and connected it to PC with Windows 7 HDD. However wierd things happen:

  1. every time I connect SSD drive via SATA, checkdisk utility launches, for no reason
  2. on Windows 7 system, I just simply copy paste folder. Yet I constantly get wierd messages about permissions - yet after confirming and doing it as Admin, I can copy files
  3. After detaching Windows 8 SSD, and attaching it back to my laptop I don't see copied folder, or I see it, but I can not access it - I get an error that files/folders are corrupted.

Do you know what is the issue and how to solve it?

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This isn't the right way to go about transferring your files.

The errors you're getting about permissions are due to the fact that on an NTFS file system, the user permissions on each folder are associated with the user's SID, which is a unique identifier assigned to each user account. If you attach a hard drive from Computer A to Computer B and boot off the hard drive installed in Computer B, the operating system doesn't know about the user accounts on Computer A, which is why you get prompted to put in your admin credentials to access the files.

By any chance are you connecting and disconnecting the hard drive while the computer is turned on? If so, that would explain the checkdisk utility launching and the corrupt files. Hard drives aren't meant to be connected and disconnected from a computer while it's turned on unless they are in an external enclosure connected via USB.

I would recommend transferring your files by copying them to an external hard drive. Alternately, if both computers are on the same network, you can use the Windows Easy Transfer utility to copy your files (and optionally, your settings as well).

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I turn off both machines before I mess with drives. –  dragonfly Jan 13 '13 at 10:27

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