Possible. Defrag it overnight, give it a scandisk beforehand and afterwards.
Download the relevant diagnostic tools for it too (seatools if its a seagate or maxtor, DLG Diag if its a WD etc) and run those - but make sure everything important is backed up first. Even if it says the drive's healthy it gives peace of mind.
I've had brand new drives come to me completely nackered, and I've been fitting (older) computers with 10gb drives from late 90's that've been used in military and corporate machines 24/7 since date of manufacture with no performance issues or errors at all
Very random, the lifespan of drives.
It could still be RAM: different software will call different information from different parts of the RAM, not always the first bit available. Even if they did, the crashing game may just use a bit more ram than AOC for example and hits a "bad spot". Also worth checking.