iMac showing SMART failure

Wow...this is the second time in a row where I'm having drive issues with my Mac.  The firs time, it was my Macbook, where the drive outright failed.  This time, it is my iMac.

I purchased Mountain Lion two days ago.  I began to download it last night to install on my iMac and during the install process, I was asked to select where to install ML, so I selected the main drive.  A pop-up appeared stating there were errors on the drive and that failure was imminent.  It would not let me install.

So, I've made an appointment to the local (if you want to call it that) Genius Bar, for tomorrow morning.  I've to pack up the 27" iMac and tote it to the Genius Bar.  That's going to be a bit of a PITA.  Then I'm probably going to be told that they'll have my iMac for a week or so...let's not hope I have to go through the same situation as my last visit.

Now, this problem is rampant on the Apple.com forums, as well as MacRumors.com.  Many people were blaming Lion, but some people were running Snow Leopard when this occurred.  I don't believe it is any Mac OS version, but something isn't quite right here.  Many people were affected by this.  The culprit is either a bad batch of drives, which Apple has a "recall" on (my system didn't qualify for this recall...weird), or a cooling issue that is adversely affecting hard drives, as many have complained that their systems are running excessively hot.  Many people have also stated that OS X is becoming smart enough to actually correctly assess imminent drive failure (whereas the previous OSs were not able to do this consistently).  That only partially explains the large amount of drive failure complaints...what's causing the failures?

Another thing:  I have no idea how long my machine has been showing "fail" as a SMART status.  You'd think the user/admin would be prompted somehow that there's an issue related to drive failure.  I wasn't made aware until I tried to install v10.8.  An admin shouldn't have to check the SMART status daily, weekly, or even monthly.  Really...this is 2012 and an OS should somehow convey (proactively) the nature of such a status.

I've Time Machine, so I've a backup.