The Trouble with Hard Drives

So, after a year and approximately 2 months, the hard drive on my MacBook bit the dust. November 8th, to be exact. Great. At least the whole computer didn't die. Unfortunately, it may as well have. I had hardly anything saved in other places from the hard drive. Which means, in short, the vast majority of the pictures I had from Hawaii are now nonexistent. Oh well. I did manage to have some of the better ones saved in various other places. And of course, everything else is gone too. Luckily there are other family pictures on others' computers. But all those documents I had going (ranking in a variety of importance) are also lost. A select few dated back to middle school. I suppose in the grand scheme of things that middle school doesn't really amount to much though.
I'm just kind of annoyed though. One year for a hard drive? Seagate, you really need to step it up. (For any Mac users/enthusiasts who may have encountered problems with theirs too, I am referring to the infamous Firmware version 7.01 they released - mostly with the original generation MacBooks, though not limited to just Macs.)
So, hopefully the Hitachi I ordered will pull through. Once I get it in two or three more weeks.