Can a hard drive failure ruin a motherboard or vice versa?

[tonylombardi]

Can a hard drive failure ruin a motherboard or vice versa?
About a week ago my computer failed and I got just a blank screen with a blinking cursor. When I restarted I got absolutely nothing. No beeps and no video whatsoever. I took the hard drive over to another computer I have and had to reinstall Windows XP on the drive because it would freeze booting up. It would flash windows xp but then automatically restart. The drive then was working fine in that computer's motherboard, an Abit IC-7. Then I brought the drive back to the failed computer and tried to install it on that motherboard, which is a non-name brand (it's actually Motherboard). Still absolutely nothing. So apparently that motherboard failed.

Now I have a new motherboard, an ASUS P4B (got on eBay). I replaced the failed mobo with the ASUS p4B. It works, but on start up a SMART error pops up saying the drive is about to fail. I can still go on and load win xp, and everything seems to work ok.

Now I'm wondering, what caused what? Did the drive fail ruin the motherboard, or did the motherboard fail ruin the drive? Aside from the SMART error, the drive seems to work fine. It is pretty old though. The date says may 2000, and I do use it a lot. I guess I need to replace the drive, but I still want to know what caused the problem.

Anthony Lombardi

http://www.anthonylombardi.com

 

[micker377]

Hard to say, but the hard drive does take power from the PSU and the data-cable does connect to the IDE port. Last time I had a "Smart drive? error, the drive lasted for 3 more boots and died! Just to be safe, back-up any necessary data immediatly and pray!

 

[hopelessliar]

What make is the drive? It'd probably be a good idea to visit the manufacturer's website and download a diagnostic utility to see what that tells you.

I'm struggling to see how a motherboard failure would result in these drive problems. Or vice versa. But I'd echo Micker's thoughts on backing up as a matter of priority. If your data is safe what's the worst that can happen?

 

[tonylombardi]

Thanks for the comments guys. I did back it up, and now I'm setting up XP on another drive. I just want to make sure something weird like this doesn't happen again, so I'm trying to figure out what exactly happened. Maybe it's some sort of fluke. I'll see if I can find something more about the drive.