Windows 98 hard drive

Hi,
I have a windows 98 computer that was unable to bootup….I tried a few things and tried hooking it up as a slave and I was able to see the data on the hard drive.I tried the drive on a different computer and the first few times it booted up fine. After a few times I was unable to boot it back up.Tried putting the old drive back and I was unable to bootup.Tried the drive in question on another computer same thing, okay 1st few times than unable to boot it backup, and the old drive does not work. Can a bad hard drive be killing the system..There was norton antivirus on it and up to date…Any help would be appreciated.