no, the cable box is utter shit. i've been through a dozen of them.
edit: to specify, i believe the problem you're having is caused by software errors during recording, possibly due to overheated or just crappy processor, memory, motherboard et cetera. i don't think the hard drive is to blame, because all of today's drives have built-in self diagnosis, and will skip bad sectors.
this is separate from other issues, like the box becoming extremely laggy, losing settings, or hard crashing.
good stuff, good stuff.