Possible Imminent Hard Drive Failure?

First off I have an Early 2011 MacBook Pro running OSX Mountain Lion. Avast version 7.0 is running as my anti-virus software with current definitions. I'm a network administration student so I run 2 or 3 virtual machines simultaneously to replicate a domain environment for learning. With that I decided I need space for all these operating systems plus my music and pics, so 10 Days ago I purchased a new Seagate 750GB HD Microcenter and upgraded to 8GB from 4GB of ram while I had the case open. HD has worked like a champ and the computer has been faster for days until last night. I was on Facebook and suddenly I got the spinning beach ball of death. Giving it the mac 3 the mac version of the three-finger salute didn't help me so I went for the hard restart. After that I got the blank grey screen. I restarted with the option key and all I saw was my Windows Partition, but when I tried to boot to it I got a kernel panic. So I went and got the OSX Mountain Lion thumb drive I made (didn't expect to be needing that so soon) and used disk utility. Disk Utility could not verify the disk and told me to format the disk and reinstall OSX. Knowing that I have everything recently backed up with time machine and Winclone I went ahead and formatted and restored my time machine backup along with my Winclone backup. (My attitude was, what were my options)
During the restoration process of OSX I had zero problems, while doing the restoration of my Windows partition with Winclone I was watching the console log and saw this.....
9/19/12 7:20:44.653 AM Winclone[460]: 19.62 percent completed
9/19/12 7:20:57.674 AM Winclone[460]: 20.63 percent completed
9/19/12 7:21:10.989 AM Winclone[460]: 21.64 percent completed
9/19/12 7:21:13.000 AM kernel[0]: (default pager): [KERNEL]: ps_allocate_cluster - send HI_WAT_ALERT
9/19/12 7:21:13.000 AM kernel[0]: macx_swapon SUCCESS
9/19/12 7:21:25.018 AM Winclone[460]: 22.65 percent completed
9/19/12 7:21:26.489 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[368]: (com.apple.coreservices.appleid.authentication[479]) Exited: Killed: 9
9/19/12 7:21:26.000 AM kernel[0]: memorystatus_thread: idle exiting pid 479 [AppleIDAuthAgent]
9/19/12 7:21:30.768 AM Messages[379]: [Warning] Could not find transfer for guid: E1C93988-7FB6-46D9-949C-3D0F0A6A35FF
9/19/12 7:21:30.768 AM Messages[379]: [Warning] Could not find transfer for guid: 2E3B4C2A-007C-4877-A34E-9F2DDE148B18
9/19/12 7:21:30.768 AM Messages[379]: [Warning] Could not find transfer for guid: 3FDFED6A-9F52-4F19-ACAE-8802867CE8EB
9/19/12 7:21:30.768 AM Messages[379]: [Warning] Could not find transfer for guid: 21B6D0B5-DD7E-4442-A2FD-23C5572EB46F
9/19/12 7:21:31.848 AM com.apple.launchd[1]: (com.apple.iCloudHelper[468]) Exited: Killed: 9
9/19/12 7:21:31.000 AM kernel[0]: memorystatus_thread: idle exiting pid 468 [com.apple.iCloud]
9/19/12 7:21:33.241 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[368]: (com.apple.CalendarAgent[465]) Exited: Killed: 9
9/19/12 7:21:33.000 AM kernel[0]: memorystatus_thread: idle exiting pid 465 [CalendarAgent]
9/19/12 7:21:34.662 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[368]: (com.apple.pbs[444]) Exited: Killed: 9
9/19/12 7:21:34.000 AM kernel[0]: memorystatus_thread: idle exiting pid 444 [pbs]
9/19/12 7:21:35.822 AM com.apple.launchd[1]: (com.apple.audio.SandboxHelper[440]) Exited: Killed: 9
9/19/12 7:21:35.000 AM kernel[0]: memorystatus_thread: idle exiting pid 440 [com.apple.audio.]
9/19/12 7:21:37.244 AM com.apple.launchd[1]: (com.apple.xpcd.CA000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[439]) Exited: Killed: 9
9/19/12 7:21:37.000 AM kernel[0]: memorystatus_thread: idle exiting pid 439 [xpcd]
9/19/12 7:21:37.598 AM Winclone[460]: 23.66 percent completed
I'm not a beginner Mac user but I'm not an all-knowing genius of the Mac either, but I know the GUID has something to do with the file structure of the hard drive.... Either way after I performed the restoration everything seems to be back to normal. The same fast computer I had before with no glitches and disk utility has even verified my disk on several occasions now and hasn't reported any issues.
So here is my ultimate question? What would cause this random failure in the first place if not the HD? Is the forum's consensus that I should take the HD back anyways even though all checks are passing currently? And, if not the HD how can I prevent this from happening again? Let's face it, I'm a college student, I need my computer. Luckily it died when I was going to bed and I could let it restore overnight. Also, It's lucky for me that I didn't have class this morning and have no assignments pending that are immediately due so I can complete the windows restoration in the morning.
I'll be looking forward to everyone's insight.

Thanks for the info.
I just bought Techtool Pro last week when I my hard drive directories got chewed up the first time. The box has a "Tiger Compatible" sticker on it so I imagine it's at least v4.0.4 on the CD. (Although I will check now)
However, I think now the problem has progressed. Now the hard drive goes into a 1-2 minute cycling routine a couple times per day even if the computer is idle. Out of nowhere it starts up and it makes this repetitious reading/writing sound. It lasts 1-2 minutes and during this time the computer is hung-up (round-rainbow animated icon) and can't do anything, just have to wait it out.
At this point I'm thinking of calling it quits and I'm just going to take the machine in while there is still a warranty on it as I'm really starting to believe it's drive failure and not a problem with software.

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Hi,
The 301 Smart error would indicate that your Hard Drive is failing and will need to be replaced.
If your notebook is still under warranty, contact HP and arrange to have the drive replaced. You can check your warranty status Here.
If you live in the US, contact HP Here.
If you are in another part of the world, start Here.
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Imminent hard drive failure

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Rich

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dear sir,
i need urgent help!! my laptop says that it has detected an imminent hardware failure although it hasn't even been 6 months since i bought it. i ran the system diagnosis for
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Hi,
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