Ok, so after downloading the blockchain and re-indexing a few times, I'm still stuck. The outputs below are
after that I have reinstalled bitcoin core.
2017-11-06 19:37:05 UpdateTip: new best=0000000000000000032894a63a03884fc3fd4b5c98de5e2cc7066ce764dc447e height=445828 version=0x20000000 log2_work=85.748268 tx=183429132 date='2016-12-30 15:58:45' progress=0.681485 cache=325.9MiB(2116235txo)
2017-11-06 19:37:05 LevelDB read failure: Corruption: block checksum mismatch
2017-11-06 19:37:05 Corruption: block checksum mismatch
2017-11-06 19:38:07 Error reading from database: Database corrupted
On a clean wallet:
2017-11-06 20:02:45 UpdateTip: new best=000000000000000002e901d8303d43e8bbd4d8f76a66cf2f2da064e8fbb31dbe height=448192 version=0x20000000 log2_work=85.819278 tx=187733247 date='2017-01-14 21:07:23' progress=0.697464 cache=238.2MiB(1397685txo)
2017-11-06 20:02:45 LevelDB read failure: Corruption: block checksum mismatch
2017-11-06 20:02:45 Corruption: block checksum mismatch
2017-11-06 20:02:56 Error reading from database: Database corrupted
In addition, during syncing my wallet shows transactions with the wrong date. Transactions from 2013 show up as they were in 15/10/2017, which is definitely wrong (aka at 60% blockchain I seetransactions with 2017 datestamp). Re-indexing does not help this.
The drive is healthy, plenty of space and the error occurs regardless if I use Windows or Linux. (According to various scans, no bad sector, is present. The drive is ~6 monnths old, so statistically it should be the smallest "issue factor")
I have even went so far as to completely uninstall bitcoin core, create a fresh wallet and start downloading the blockchain. If I put back my own wallet, I get the error and the messed-up datestamps for transactions. If I let the fresh wallet, it also gives the error (as above).