How to keep my P5B from hurting things?

I have a P5B, its doing great. However, i have some concerns.

I had a hard drive fail on the rig yesterday, and can help but suspect i forgot something important.

The FSB was set at 400... and i cant remember if i / how i would make sure the PCI freq's were locked. -- Anyone know??

If there was anything else that could cause PCI devices / the south bridge / onboard hard drive controlers to become unstable and possibly cause hard drive failure... that would also be good to know

OK, setting PCI clock sync mode to 33.33

What does spread spectrum do??

Spread spectrum is usually pointless. It's supposed to introduce some randomness into the clock frequency to prevent electrical interference with other devices. Maybe it's useful if you like to run with your case off, although I've never had to use it, nor I have ever heard of anyone who did.

Some claim enabling it hurts OC performance.

yeah, it does kinda hurt oc performance. What were your PCI-e clocks at?? somtimes mine wont see the drive if its around 120mhz. If its over or around 120 then drop it to 100mhz....

I have yet to hear that OC damages a HDD, and or that a Mobo damaged a HDD.
However, OC, can cause data loss and data corruption.

Power supplies will damage a mobo and other components before damaging a HDD. In other words, your HDD has failed on its own do to being a lemon from the start imo.