HDD failure on an ACER laptop

With the exception of interface, laptop hard drives (2.5" drives) are easily interchangeable. You can look up the specs of the drive you pull by googling the manufacturer and model number, but the main specs are interface (sata or ide, yours is ide according to the info I found about this laptop- not interchangeable with sata), drive speed (yours probably 5400 rpm, faster ones are 7200), buffer size (usually 8 MB).
So, if you think the issue is your drive, check out something like:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=1277&name=2.5-Hard-Drive
although Iwould probably go to a store personally instead of any kind of mail order. Take your old drive with you if you are not sure. You could even put in a bigger capacity drive; I believe your laptop came with only 80GB??.