Verifying File Integrity After PC Migration

Ensure your data remains intact after a PC migration. Follow these steps to verify file counts, sizes, and integrity on your new Windows system.

1. Compare aggregate directory properties. Open File Explorer and navigate to the root folder of your data on both the source and destination drives. Right-click the folder and select Properties to compare the Size and Contains values. Note any discrepancies in the number of files or total size, as these indicate incomplete transfers.
2. List directory contents via terminal. Press the Windows key, type cmd, and press Enter to open the Command Prompt. Use the dir /s /a command within your target directory to generate a recursive list of all files. Redirect this output to a text file using the > syntax to facilitate side-by-side comparison with your source logs.
3. Check for hidden system files. In File Explorer, navigate to the View menu, select Show, and ensure Hidden items is checked. Migration processes often omit system or hidden files, which may be required for application configuration. Ensure these files exist in their corresponding paths on the new machine.
4. Verify file readability. Select a random sample of files from various subdirectories, specifically high-density folders like Documents or Pictures. Attempt to open these files in their associated applications to ensure no header corruption occurred during the move. If files fail to open, re-copy the affected directories from the source.
5. Perform a checksum validation. For mission-critical data, run the Get-FileHash cmdlet in PowerShell on both source and destination files. Compare the resulting hash strings; if they match, the file integrity is identical. If hashes differ, the file was corrupted during transfer and must be re-migrated.