Computer help: File corruption and permissions issue - bad hard drive?

File corruption and permissions issue - bad hard drive?

I installed a second hard drive on my computer last year and the drive hasn't been as reliable as I would like. I am not exactly sure what is wrong. I'll go through the problems I have had so far with the drive.

The computer is running Windows XP Home and the drive is a Seagate 7200.10 ST3160815A 160GB. When I installed the hard drive last year, I could not format the drive under Disk Management in the Computer Management window. It was like the drive was not being fully recognized. I think I ended up having to use SeaTools or some other program to get the drive formatted.

All seemed well, but then I started having problems when copying files to the drive. If I copied a folder from another drive, sometimes the copy of the folder on the new drive would have some files that were corrupt and wouldn't open. Another problem I would have occasionally is that I would be told I couldn't open a file because I didn't have sufficient rights, even though I was logged in as an administrator. I found a fix online that involves booting the computer under Safe Mode and then changing the permissions on the file. This permissions issue only happens on the newer drive.

I bought this hard drive so I would have more disk space and get another couple of years out of my computer, but I haven't been able to really use the drive because I don't trust it enough to put anything important there. I keep backups of everything, but I'd rather not have to use them all the time.

Any ideas of what is wrong? With the computer being 5.5 yrs old now, I'd rather not spend a lot of time and effort fixing it. The drive is still under warranty. Would getting a new IDE cable help, or is this a deeper problem?