Hello!
Thank you for posting in HP support forums!
I am sorry about the issue you experience. You have all my moral support for this issue :smileyhappy:
I think you still keep your old HDD and it is working fine (except from the slightly slow performance you don't like and you decided for SSD).
If this is the case and if you have back up of your data, I would recommend you completely format the SSD and reinstall Windows 8 from scrtch - just for the experiment.
I would also recommend you open the BIOS (F10 key on start-up) of your computer and change the disk modes to different ones - try with AHCI or IDE and let me know if you notice any difference.