Second NTFS boot sector is unwriteable

[G0AOZ]

Two Maxtor IDE hard drives in an XP Pro SP3 machine. All running fine until recently when tried to do an Acronis backup onto the second drive. The upshot is that running CHKDSK /R on that drive it reported 'Second NTFS boot sector is unwriteable'.

Deleted partition, wiped drive, then new partition, and reformated (NOT quick format). Did it twice. Tried FDISK /MBR as well. Still same problem. Run the Seagate HDD diags, along with one or two others, but none of them report any problems. Only CHKDSK shows an error.

There is a limit as to how much time it's worth devoting to this, before the drive is just thrown out and replaced. I gather that two boot sectors are written to a drive, but a search of the Internet has not so far revealed any solutions. However, it would be interesting to know if there is a fix for it...

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[goombawaho]

Probably NOT the drive, but to confirm: Bad cable??? Bad IDE or SATA port??? Try alternates.

Can you try it in a different machine to rule everything out??

 

[G0AOZ]

Thanks for the reply Goom...

Nope, should've mentioned it before but already tried different cable, different port, different machine. Apologies.

Have actually now run through wipe, clean, repartition and reformat a further two times, and the message has gone! But, Acronis still won't back up to that disk. If I put a different disk in the machine, it backs up to it without a whimper. Think it's about ready for the ol' kick and throw test now...!
ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[goombawaho]

Well, don't spend $60 worth of time on a $50 part.