Does the drive support s.m.a.r.t.?
It can give you an indication of it's health, but I think it has to have been monitoring the drive from the start to give an accurate result.
To be honest, I think you should get a new drive before this one dies (how old is it anyway?). Those errors appear for a reason; reformat and reïnstall might fix it for now, but I think it won't be long before those errors reappear.
