Will a faulty IDE connector damage your hard drive?

[Gaard]

I've had 3 drives die on me this past year, but just figured out my primary is bad. But I got to thinking, if it's just my primary, maybe the drives are still good. So I plugged the latest drive that 'died' on me into my secondary, and lo and behold, it booted right up. (I never knew you could boot off your secondary. Guess I'm not the geek as much a geek as I thought.) But sadly, the other two drives are still kaput.

 

[stogez]

It shouldnt physically damage the drive. Probably just give drive errors and data corruption.

 

[Captante]

The drive that appears to work may only have come back to life for a short time, if you have any data on it you care about I'd back it up asap.

As to your original question, I suppose its possible, but I think its unlikely.

 

[bendixG15]

Longshot, but only takes a minute.

How do you know your primary is bad ?
Go into Control Panel, and reinstall drivers for the primary.
(do the reboot thing)

Then retry the hard drive on the primary.

For laughs, you could also check that the cable connections are solid.