[quote=jchuzi]Or if you don't have $100 to spend on a third party utility you can check the S.M.A.R.T. status with Disk Utility...
I have checked it with Disk warrior but DW says things look okay.
The best indicator of impending drive failure is a surface scan. For that you will probably need TechTool Pro or Drive Genius.
I also own TechTool Pro and did run a surface scan (for the first time ever) about a month ago. It didn't find any issues. I could do another one but that'd likely be tonight given the amount of time it takes.
Is it meaningful that, once past the 10 minute boot time, when the machine is up and running it operates normally?