My question is: If the battery is low, will it cause an older computer to fail to operate and not recognize the hard drive? Thank you to anyone who can advise [email protected]

The battery powers the CMOS which holds the settings for some of the installed peripherals, including the hard drive. If the battery dies, the CMOS settings may revert to default causing problems in booting.

On it will not cause the computer to fail it will only cause to loos the time every time you turn off the PC and the settings will reset as well