Disk Utility says my hard disk is corrupt. What's the likely reason?

My OS X installation wouldn't turn on, and Disk Utility said something about needing to backup as many files as possible, then reformatting.

So I backed up my data and reinstalled in a new drive, and used the old as a drive for non-essential data.

A week or so later, Disk Utility shows the following issue:

Incorrect number of extended attributes
It should be X instead of Y

I've never had so many issues within such a short period of time so I'm buying a new disk.

I did some reading on extended attributes and it afaik it is a filesystem/software issue and not a hardware issue. But what exactly could cause an incorrect number of extended attributes?

Weaselboy said:

Just to clarify, you put in a new replacement drive and now these errors are popping up on the new drive? If that is the case, it could be that you have a and drive cable. This seems to be becoming a more common problem lately.

Click to expand...

Whoops it seems like I didn't word my post quite clearly.

The errors are popping up on the same drive. So repair, reformat, same issue appears.