I'm testing the Windows 8 Consumer Preview's To Go functionality and created an installation of Windows 8 on an external HD (instead of a USB stick).
I can attach this drive to my main desktop via an external SATA port and boot from it. Windows 8 boots up and runs just fine. I can see the desktop's existing D: drive, which is a Raid 0 setup running on a secondary SATA bus. I can not see the original C: drive, which is fine.
My problem is when I shut down and boot back up into Windows 7. Windows tells me that my D: drive is corrupted and requires CHKDSK to be run. CHKDSK finds lots of errors (I don't remember which, but it seemed like a healthy variety) and has successfully repaired them. The corruption occurs every time I boot to Win8 and go back to Win7.
My question is why is this corruption happening and is there anything I can do to prevent it?
Thanks,
P.S. Yes I know it's beta software. The corruption does not happen on all PCs…just this one.
Best Answer
I suppose Win 8 upgrades the filesystem to a new format that Win7 can't recognize and is then forced to restore the backup MFT.
I also found a post on Technet which seems to describe that problem, with no solution to this day.