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Okay, I got a brand new computer, two 1000GB Seagate Barracuda ST31000528AS* ATA hard drives, and Windows 7 seems to hate one of them. Specifically, it hates disk 0 (the one which had Windows pre-installed on it), which I've mapped to disk 1 in the BIOS and remapped back to disk 0 in the GRUB bootloader on disk 1 (which is mapped to disk 0 so it'll boot) in an ill-conceived attempt to make Windows shut up about its bootloader being corrupt (which didn't work, and I had to reformat the whole drive, as usual, even though I never touched its stupid bootloader (but that's another story)). It worked fine for a few weeks, and now Windows is complaining about it (I mean, Windows always complains about hard drives, but not like this).
Google says it's a SMART error, but it can't be because SMART reports both drives are good. Temperature's fine, but just in case I turned the hard drive fan on full blast. It didn't help. I'll try removing drive mapping and run chkdisk on the boot partition. Maybe something weird's going on.

*This is the 7200.12 series, not the 7200.11, so it's the one that doesn't have the firmware issues. Right? Right?

wasn't the one with the firmware issues the one that stopped working after a couple weeks? >.>
Anyways, umm, specifically when are you getting the error? (ie, once windows is booted up, during the bootup process...)
and what does it specifically way on the error message? Just the text in the thread title?

wasn't the one with the firmware issues the one that stopped working after a couple weeks? >.>

Yes, but that was the 7200.11, not the 7200.12. I thought they fixed it. Apparently I was wrong.

Anyways, umm, specifically when are you getting the error? (ie, once windows is booted up, during the bootup process...)
and what does it specifically way on the error message? Just the text in the thread title?

I got the error every few minutes, then after an hour SMART finally decided it wasn't just Windows being Windows, and said the drive was getting ready to implode (though not in those words). Not having enough space on my flash drive to back up an entire Windows installation, I backed up my Linux installation, then backed up the failing Windows drive sector by sector onto my Linux drive. Two hours later, the head went off track and I got about a billion bad sectors, decided to abort the backup process and go straight to wiping the data off the remaining sectors of the failing drive (no way I'm sending a drive back that still has my, erm, files still on it ).
All went well, and I now have a dead hard drive with nothing on it, and a good hard drive with a quarter of a Windows installation on it. It boots, but that's about it. It can't even run Explorer or even launch a command prompt. Most of the data is gone (but I have backups of most of the important stuff (I think)).
But that's not the worst part. I had already activated Windows, and despite being on a severely fscked up* partition on an entirely different hard drive, it's still activated, and I'd like it to stay that way. The entire hard drive needs to be reformatted (neither Windows nor Linux thinks very much of a failed sector-by-sector backup), so... how do I reformat and reinstall Windows 7 without deactivating it???

*fsck[8] = File System ChecK (related to a certain similarly-spelt word only in that the two are often used at the same time, and for the same reason )

... looks like you got your answer >.< (abliet the hard way)

Ummm, so, if the second drive is the same model, I would not trust it. Asked my dad about the one he got, it too had issues and failed after two days, though yeah, it was the 7200.11

So reformatting and then reinstalling windows 7 without deactivating it? I'm not 100% sure what you mean: do you mean that you don't want to have to bother activating it again after you reinstall it (because your key should still work, at least I know it is fine with that for win XP - its based on changes to your hardware, but that also depends if you got it from (upgrade vs. 3rd party pc manufacturer vs. OEM vs. volume license (for pro and enterprise); if you exceed the number of hardware changes, you would need to enter your key again so that the activation servers would be apprised ... or something. I think. But the key should still work.), or are you worried that your key will nolonger be valid?

... looks like you got your answer >.< (abliet the hard way)

Ummm, so, if the second drive is the same model, I would not trust it. Asked my dad about the one he got, it too had issues and failed after two days, though yeah, it was the 7200.11

No, it seems more like physical damage, since the bad sectors occur in a regular pattern after the point where the head goes off-track. Probably someone dropped it at the factory and thought it would still outlast the warranty.

So reformatting and then reinstalling windows 7 without deactivating it? I'm not 100% sure what you mean: do you mean that you don't want to have to bother activating it again after you reinstall it (because your key should still work, at least I know it is fine with that for win XP - its based on changes to your hardware, but that also depends if you got it from (upgrade vs. 3rd party pc manufacturer vs. OEM vs. volume license (for pro and enterprise); if you exceed the number of hardware changes, you would need to enter your key again so that the activation servers would be apprised ... or something. I think. But the key should still work.), or are you worried that your key will nolonger be valid?

But will the key still be valid though? The hardware has changed - it's on a different hard drive that I'm most likely going to have to reformat. You know how much Windows 7 hates running on different hard drives.

They key should still be valid: I would be seriously surprised if it was not.

Well, I've had an activation key mysteriously stop working even with no hardware changes whatsoever, so I'd rather not risk it (apparently, you're only allowed to reinstall Windows three times, even if it's the exact same version on the exact same hardware). I'll just copy the Software Protection Platform tokens (I managed to recover them this time) onto the new hard drive (when I get it - I can't get it today because everyone still recovering from New Year's celebrations, or they just think it's unfair that New Year's Day was on a weekend and the want another day off for no reason) and hope for the best. I know some, uh, people who know about these things who assure me this will work.

Only 3 times? that is really quite silly.

ok, checked - the limit is there, but thats only for online-activation: after that, you have to use phone-activation. But yeah, phone activation is a hassle >.<

I returned the drive, then six hours later I got a call back. Since they ought to have found the problem in less than two hours, I can only assume they spent the other four hours searching for a loophole in the warranty. The good news is, they didn't find one, so I can pick up the replacement drive tomorrow.

UPDATE: Got the drive, reinstalling Windows now.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reinstalled Windows, copied the SPP tokens off the other drive, and Windows now thinks it's activated properly (which it is, since that trick only works if the BIOS hasn't changed - no way to use the same key on two different computers).