Getting "This drive is in use." from old OS Drive when trying to format it

So, I recently moved my Win11 22H2 (OS Build 22621.2134) from its original SSD to a new NVMe using AOMEI Backupper to make a copy of it. But, as I was trying to format the SSD where the OS copy is, I get this error:



Which is weird, considering that nothing should be running from there anymore. So I ran ProcMon to see if there was indeed something running from the old OS, and I found nothing running from it.

My worry is that I've heard rumors of the Boot sector not properly copying from one drive to another when you clone it, and I'm afraid that if I just ignore the message, I'll mess up my boot sequence.

So, anyone knows what might be causing this? Or is this something related to that boot issue I heard about?

Thanks in advance.

I don't know.

However, an obvious thing to try is disconnecting or removing the old drive. If the PC boots from the new NVME drive, then you're good to proceed with formatting the old drive.

For my own use, I have an external USB dock for 2.5" and 3.5" drives, plus an external enclosure for M.2 drives. That avoids the issue of having two boot drives installed in the same PC.

Agree with @bobkn , try disconnecting the old drive and see if the computer boots.

Blake81 said:

My worry is that I've heard rumors of the Boot sector not properly copying from one drive to another when you clone it, and I'm afraid that if I just ignore the message, I'll mess up my boot sequence.

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You can do DISKPART List Partitions from an admistrator's command prompt. That will show you if you have the right partitions on the new disk.

Blake81 said:

Which is weird, considering that nothing should be running from there anymore. So I ran ProcMon to see if there was indeed something running from the old OS, and I found nothing running from it.

Click to expand...

Also, perform a Safe Boot on Windows, then see if can format disk, without background programs running.
Yes, I would check the new disk has the correct partitions first before re-formatting the old disk.

look in msinfo32 for boot device.

The other disk is probably in use by mysterious functions. Quite often happens to hot swappers and is a bit annoying.

If it lets you format it, then it is not essential to your current os. It asks "do you want to format it anyway".

I think I remember @jumanji saying that if you clone a drive internally then it also clones the drive's ID so that will confuse Windows if you don't remove the original drive, after shutting down, and just booting with the newly cloned drive only. I think I'm right

if you clone a drive internally then it also clones the drive's ID

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I presume you mean disk id.
If it is an all sector clone, then it will. If there is a clash, Windows automatically changes the second disk id when it is brought online.
Cloning that is performed by most popular tools does not do that ( unless you specifically select all sector or forensic)

Boy, so many answers. Lots of things to test. I can say I did not do a sector-by-sector copy, I just "cloned" it the same way I once did when I cloned my old Win7 to make the Win11 upgrade (I wasn't sure if that was gonna work, so I cloned the OS and upgraded the clone to Win10 then Win11 right away).

I'll try unplugging the Drive and seeing if the PC still boots.

I believe Windows will detect that Windows is installed on the drive and therefore consider it a System drive, so won't allow formatting.
I've had a similar problem before.