Multiple Hard Drive Failures on Macbook Pro 15inch (late 2008)

So I just lost my THIRD hard drive since July on my refurbished Macbook Pro. I was told when the first one failed it was just bad luck. That hard drives fail once in a while. Then in December when the 2nd one died I was told there was no way there was a connection but they would run test on the macbook Pro. Both times I told the genius workers that my Macbook pro runs very very hot at random times (not all the time and I have not had it happen at an Apple store) and that I have many friends with Macs and I have never had a friend macbook get as hot as mine but both times I was told that my macbook could not be getting too hot it would shut off if it got too hot. The 2nd time I was told all the test came back normal and it was just bad luck the 2nd hard drive failed. SO.....
Anyways so yesterday my hard drive is failing again!!!! Third time! since July!!!
So my question anyone else having this problem?
I am sure that there is a problem with the macbook pro that is leading these failures-- but I cannot get an apple genius to believe me. I personally think it is time for Apple to replace my macbook pro if they cannot fully determine the underlying problem. Anyone have these issues?
I am headed to an apple store tomorrow but it is a 2.5 hour drive (one way) for me and this gets really really old each time I lose a hard drive!!

A drive can be so badly corrupted that it doesn't work, but be resurrected through repartitioning and reformatting etc, TravisPaul.
On some occasions, too, I can imagine an over-pressured service department deciding to simply replace a drive rather than go to the trouble of thoroughly troubleshooting it and "not being able" to recover data from it for much the same reasons! It takes less time, though there is no evidence that this is what has happened here, of course, and I wouldn't expect it to occur in an Apple Retail Store.
The symptoms you report could just as readily involve corruption as failure. Doesn't sound like lack of free space was an issue. Did you attempt any repair processes yourself before taking them in (repairing the disk with Disk Utility or a Safe Boot, checking SMART status, reformatting the drives and re-installing your OS etc?) If three drives have really failed there is either another , undiagnosed, problem or you have been extremely unlucky, but probability being what it is, given the number of these computers in circulation, I guess it must happen every once in a while. Heck, a person I know lost their house in the Australian bushfires last year and then got caught up in the Peruvian mudslides while on a holiday trying to forget about the house! Even lightning really does strike more than once in the same spot occasionally.
Cheers
Rod

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