17" Macbook pro appears to be eating hard drives...

I've got a 17" macbook pro. I'm running Boot Camp and windows XP on it...
A few months after getting it, my computer started having weird intermittent issues... the hard drive seemed to run alot, it would crash, and just other weird stuff. I reformatted the hard drive (both MAC and XP partitions) and reinstalled. This worked fine... for a while.
About 3 months later, same issue. Started getting flaky. Then it developed a "reboot" issue... namely when it would boot, it would crash in the middle of the boot, reboot itself, and work fine. (There was a BSOD but it never stayed up long enough for me to be able to read it) I went to the store and the guy there told me most likely I had a bad hard drive... could either try reinstalling, but since I had done that, probably should swap the drive.
I replaced the drive, installed the OSs and things ran fine. Again, about 3 months later things started getting flaky. The first thing I noticed was again, the hard drive would run alot. Then things would get slow on bootup. Finally, this past weekend it just got to the point the system was DOA... when I boot it the "System" process is taking so much time that nothing else runs in any timely fashion.
I don't go to alot of "questionable" sites, and have tried numerous anti-spyware, virus, etc packages (norton, spybot, spyware doctor, etc...)... (both preventatively and also for diagnostics). Nothing every suspicious. I've also swapped RAM.
The only thing I can really think of, is it might be an overheating issue... its not uncommon at times for me to leave my laptop on for a few days at a time running some jobs. Granted, the hard drive is tucked away up front, so probably not the hottest place on the computer.
Any thoughts?
-=Jeff

What brand hard drive do you have ? I have heard of one model of Seagate drives giving problems. If a seagate was replaced with a Seagate, that might be it.
How full is your hard drive--how much free space do you have? You should aim to keep 15%-20% free.
Do you use Disk Utility to verify and repair both permissions and the disk on a regular basis? Especially before and after downloading software?
I assume you're just using your anti spyware stuff on the Windows side--it's not necessary for OS X, and it can cause problems from what I hear although I have no first hand experience with it.
There is a utility called S.M.A.R.T. Utility that will give you a little more information on your hard drive than just "verified".
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/32454
See if this gives you any insight.
As to running your MBP for several days, I don't think that would be a problem as long as it is on a hard surface so it won't overheat. If you think your Mac may be running too hot, then run the Apple Hardware Test to be sure the thermal sensors and fans are running properly.
Please post back if nothing helps.
Good luck!

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