HT1782 Can using "repair disk" ever damage an external hard drive?

I've read a lot about "verify disk" and "repair disk," but I haven't been able to find any definitive information about whether or not there is ever a bad time to run these, especially if the files on your drive are already not accessible or the drive is otherwise having issues.
If I run repair disk before taking my drive to a specialist, is there a chance that I'll be causing more problems than I'm solving?
Edit: Sorry, didn't mean to put this in the Mountain Lion category (I'm running Lion), but I apparently can't change it. The OS shouldn't matter with regards to this question.

If I run repair disk before taking my drive to a specialist, is there a chance that I'll be causing more problems than I'm solving?
Absolutely yes. You should make no changes to a questionalble drive unless you have a current backup. If you don't have a current backup, the only thing you should do with the drive is back it up. If the backup fails, go straight to data recovery without making any further attempts to repair the volume. Maybe it can be repaired, but you have to make a block copy first.

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    https://discussions.apple.com/message/24380694#24380694
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