Dying segate drive. Is loss of data only danger?

[tlhudson69]

I have a 12g segate drive in the slave position (NO sys files) All data has been backed up 2x to cd an 1x to tape. I am down to 8g of usable space. Drive works fine in all other respects. Running win98. my question is can this problem harm my motherboard or IDE? I AM going to get a large hard drive to replace it but i want to use this one untill i get the upgrade.

 

[Jiggz]

Generally, NO! Very seldom it will affecte the mobo although it can affect the OS in the sense that it might not boot properly when the hdd dies or might even affect the primary hdd. You did not mention any indication why you believe the hdd is dying. But then I supposed you already this is coming since it's quite old.

 

[tlhudson69]

Anyone? I dont want to kill my MB. but it would be a pain to do without the files on slave. a-viruss;games;mp3(mostly);pics: short vids.

 

[tlhudson69]

THank you jiggz. I know its dying because i have 4G of bad sectors and it has already failed to boot twice. running scandisk in dos mode seamed to fix it but i know it will not last much longer maby just 30days or less is all i ask.

 

[Jiggz]

In that case, disconnect the drive now and reconfigure your hdd's. When you get a new hdd you can always connect it back on and then extract all the data you need to get. You just can't take the risk of keeping it connected just to wring the las juice out of it. It's just not worth the risk.