My motherboard died on my desktop computer. I bought a new motherboard and new copy of windows. I was in the process of removing important files from the desktop's Seagate hard drive using a SATA/USB adapter when the drive fell about 2 feet off my night table and hit a carpeted floor while it was running.

The drive still seems to work and I can still access all the files. Is a drive that falls like that still reliable? I want to put it back in the old case and install Win 7 on it. Will it fail earlier?