Bad Compaq Presario 700 Hard Drive

Bought my compaq in sep of 02 and had no problems until the warranty
expired (typical, right?) From then on I've had to re-format it 3
times and could never leave it on more than a few hours at a time with
no activity or it would crash. What I'm faced with now is getting a
new hard drive, but I don't want to get another compaq hard drive
(used or new) if it will do the same thing to me after 1 year. I also
don't want to buy a hard drive that ends up not being compatible with
my laptop. If anyone has any information about hard drives for
laptops, like which company has the most reliable, etc it would be
much appreciated.