IMac having very low reliability with Hard Drive

Hi, I recently had to replace the hard drive in my Early 2008 iMac. I replaced it with a 2 TB Seagate (pretty reliable) but my computer has been stuttering lately. It'll be fine for a couple days, and then it will just die (not permanently, just until I reboot).
Anyway, I was trying to save a document, and Pages froze with a spinning wheel after I clicked "save as." I was ultimately forced to force quit and lose my document. I then went to search activity monitor in spotlight, but it froze too. I went through stacks to get to activity monitor, and it froze too when I went to look at disk activity. Mail also froze and forced me to quit it. Only after a hard shutdown (as it got stuck trying to shut down) did my computer go back to normal.
Today, this happened again, and I'm becoming worried that I'm going to have to buy a new computer. I'm going to verify the disk tonight to look for problems, but I was wondering if you all could diagnose the problem.
Thank You!
On a side note: Mail has been unable to send any emails, and I've had trouble with some servers. I've had to redo them and they've worked, but at this time I can't send messages through mail on ANY outgoing server I have (multiple email addresses too).

The HDD corruption is a symptom. It's caused by the iMac locking up and having to be booted. When mine locks, the HDD runs constantly while the screen is frozen or a solid color. I'm forced to power it off.
Unfortunately, you are in the same boat as many others, and your issues are heat related. For me it was the HDD, then burn marks on the LCD, then GPU failures and now OS X is just unusable.
I am able to run Windows through bootcamp since my GPU recovers in Windows but not OS X. I have the fans cranked to 6000rpm and it gets to 150 - 170 degrees then things get weird. Screen flashing, spinning beach ball, solid colors, graphic distortion.
I've cleaned the vents, and fans and confirmed air flow. Be sure to try and keep your temps under control and check with Apple Store and let me know how it goes. I think mine is a goner.

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