Burnt capacitor on hard drive still usable?

[tripp1n]

A few months ago i was rebuilding my pc and had my harddrive out and on top of a non static mat, i started up my pc and it set on fire, i quickly turned off the pc and the rest of my hardware was good. On top of the hard drive it has a clearly visible burn mark around one of the capacitors which is melted.
Now since i couldnt afford to lose all the info on it, i reconnected it and i even managed to burn gigs and gigs worth of stuff with nothing going wrong.
But since i didnt want to risk it i stashed it away and purchased a new hd.
My question is technically is it a risk(like me losing the rest of my hardware) for me to reconnect and use this hard drive daily, if so what could happen from this.
thanks

 

[CrazeD]

Probably all that would happen is the drive would die. A capacitor keeps voltage and charge at a constant, so it doesn't vary.

If I were you, I would go purchase a new capacitor (they're very cheap) and solder it on.

You shouldn't have a problem with burning out other hardware, unless it shorts somehow.

 

[ibelous]

I agree with CrazeD, i would however try to goto a mom and pop shop, and see if they have old hard drives laying around, and see if they can find you a matching circuit board. They are very easy to replace, just four screws out and four screws in =D.

I had the same problem with my 160G Seagate. I went through all the old drives in my shop and found 2 circuit boards that fit my hard drive =)