Can hard drive cable kill the hard drive

Hi,
I was replacing a broken hard drive from and old one to a new western digital 13.6GB HDD (both were on the primary IDE port onboard) The MB has the AMI BIOS, auto configuration. There was a dual drive IDE cable inside already, so I didn’t bother to use the new Western Digital cable. When I turned it on, the Hard Drive began to smoke. The customer decided to take it somewheres else, and I was told that not using the new cable caused it to break. Is this possible??? I am 100% positive thepower cable wasn’t inserted backwards, afterall, it is shaped for one way. Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks
AB2HU