Yosemite setup, migration assistants and timemachine restore didn't transfer ANY files to SSD

Hi,
I'm at a total loss after 2 days of trying to upgrade my hard disk to an SSD in my Macbook Pro.
I have tried Yosemite Setup assistant, the Migration Assistant in Utilities and Restore from Time Machine.
All 3 processes run for 5 hours and say they are transferring information with a progress bar and finish saying my mac is ready to use, but none of these processes actually transfer a single file.
At the end of 2 days, they have just created a new empty user. No user files, no applications, nothing.
Please can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?
Here is what I did in detail
17" late 2011 MBP
original 750gb HDD is full.
bought a Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD and a caddy to replace the optical drive
Left original HDD in place so I am transferring files between 2 internal drives (HDD->SSD)
installed the SSD and formatted default option Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)
rebooted into repair partition (10.9)
Installed OS X on the SSD
Setup assistant told me it could not transfer data because the HDD had a newer OS
Skipped transfer and installed 10.10.2 Yosemite on SSD
Yosemite successfully installed and working on SSD
Opened Migration assistant on SSD in Utilities and selected everything to transfer from internal HDD to SSD
Migration Assistant runs for 5 hours and says it is complete - but not a single new file has been transferred onto the SSD!!
Read that Migration Assistant is less reliable than Setup Assistant
Follow a guide to Boot into Safe Mode on SSD, delete user folders and setupdone file to trigger setup again.
Restart SSD and use Setup Assistant as though new installation to transfer files from HDD.
Setup Assistant runs for 5 hours transferring files from internal HDD and says it is complete - but not a single new file has been transferred onto the SSD!!
Reboot into repair partition (10.10) on SSD
Erase SSD and install Yosemite again
Setup Assistant runs for 5 hours transferring files from internal HDD and says it is complete - but not a single new file has been transferred onto the SSD!!
Reboot into repair partition (10.10) on SSD
Erase SSD and install Yosemite again
Setup Assistant runs for 5 hours and says it is complete - but not a single new file has been transferred onto the SSD!!
Reboot into repair partition (10.10) on SSD
check HDD - repair disk found B-tree node and leaf count errors fixed disk OK and repair permissions some needed fixing
check SSD - repair permissions
Reboot into repair partition (10.10) on SSD
Erase SSD and install Yosemite again
This time connect an external HDD with Time Machine backup.
Setup Assistant runs for 5 hours transferring files from external HDD Time Machine Backup and says it is complete - but not a single new file has been transferred onto the SSD!!
2 days later I feel as empty as my new SSD: 981 GB free of 999GB
Please help
Thanks

Hi,
Thanks for the reply
I just used Carbon Copy Cloner while waiting and it seems to have worked, except it cannot create the restore partition.
If I try again using Restore in Disk Utility in the 10.9 Recovery Partition, will it create the Recovery Partition on the SSD as well?
I was surprised that having installed Yosemite (10.10.2) on the original HDD, that the restore partition on that volume was 10.9 - how can I get my data and a 10.10 recovery partition onto the SSD?
Thanks

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Yosemite setup, migration assistants and timemachine restore didn't transfer ANY files to SSD

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