Laptops take the 2.5" form factor...
They appear to be sata, you could probably go with a 7200 RPM drive but I think 5200 would be a safer bet.
I haven't been following this thread so I apologize if this has already been stated...
You can run a diagnostic disk on your HDD just to be safe...
Here is some information: http://carrona.org/hddiag.html
