I'd second AMD graphics having driver stability issues - I use a Radeon currently (last one I ever buy) and about half the driver updates I've installed for it made Windows 7 blue screen every time it booted - had to use system restore. Unprofessional too - until recently, you had to choose custom install if you didn't want it to install a free trial of Lord of the Rings Online for you. Ads during install also. And really inconsistent performance in games, and rendering glitches. And using anti-aliasing in modern games makes everything ultra-blurry. That's a Radeon 5970 by the way - not latest and greatest but certainly not ancient. So definitely go with nVidia!
As for hard disk manufacturers, I also have a s***list, but Western Digital would be the worst offender for reliability. Seagate would be my top recommendation. I've had generally good experiences with Samsungs and Hitachis but many others haven't - IBM Hitachi Deskstars used to be known as Deathstars. So I'm afraid no HDD manufacturer is a totally safe bet! Though Samsung is probably one of the safer choices. You could add a fast 120GB SSD for <$100 for Windows and software load time performance and rock solid reliability for your important documents.