Tips to Solve 'The second NTFS boot sector is unwriteable' Error

NTFS Partition Boot Sector is the NTFS metadata structure that contains all the vital information that system requires to access the partition. On system partition, disk MBR (Master Boot Record) uses this data to load the operating system files. NTFS boot sector describes partition's geometry, initial program loader and a code that is used to locate and start the startup code of partition. In Windows XP and 2000, NTFS partitions keep a second boot sector, called backup boot sector, at the end of partition. Thus if the primary copy goes damaged, the backup can rescue. In rare cases when both of the copies get corrupted, the situation can be quite critical and may compel you to recreate the partition from scratch or reinstall Windows in case of system partition. It is equally important that you should have a valid copy of the data or otherwise, you will need to use a Partition Recovery Software.

Consider a situation when you observe a corrupted and inaccessible partition in Windows XP. Considering this as a file system issue, you run chkdsk /r command to try checking and repairing the inconsistencies of the partition. But the repair fails and you receive an error message that reads as mentioned below:

“The second NTFS boot sector is unwriteable.”

As the result of this error message, the partition is still inaccessible.

Cause

The partition is corrupted in such a way that it is preventing from writing the NTFS boot sector reliably. Both the primary and backup copies of boot sector are corrupted.

The situation can be complicated if FAT12 boot sector is present at the place of NTFS boot sector (a feature of 'FIXBOOT').

Solution

To rewrite th correct boot sectors in this case, you need to reformat the corrupted partition. Since the process causes the entire data store of partition to delete, you require a backup to restore it.

There are times when the backup is not available or is invalid. In such situations, it is recommended to use a Windows Partition Recovery utility to scan and recover the lost data, preferably from the corrupted partition itself. A Partition Recovery Software is a specialized tool that is easy to install and safe to use.

source:- Hupages