Hard Drive Help
 

The hard drive has failed in my laptop its a
Hp 483186-001 -160gb 7200rpm cache16mb if-sata 2.5/9.5 drive type hdd
and a replacement is
1000gb 5400rpm cache8mb if sata 2.5 drive type hdd

So that is the one they sell to replace mine and my question is the hard drive speed being slower will this effect the way it operates and also the cache only 8mb where mine was 16mb how will this effect it or should I keep looking for an exact replacement , I only surf the internet with my laptop and store music on it .

I don't think you will notice the difference, see here :

https://www.google.ro/search?num=50&....0.xS7CDjjDsgA

if you got one of the hybrid drives, a hard drive with a small amount of ssd drive, you could then use acronis or similar to copy everything from your current drive to the new one, and because of the ssd section, after a few days the o/s would be in there, along with progs you frequently use and it would all be faster than before. just done it with mine

the replacement should be alright

If you were used to a 5400rpm 8mg cache and moved to 7200rpm 16mg cache you would notice the improvement - hope this helps.

I strongly recommend a ssd, if you do not need tera byte sized storage.
Your system will boot much faster and applications will start much faster.
This difference you will notice!

Or a hybrid, as ragapart suggested. Once you had an ssd, you will never go back!

I completely agree. You can get a Samsung 250GB or Crucial 240GB for roughly 100 USD and the speed improvement will be a vast improvement, as well as using less power and being silent. You can easily transfer your drive's contents using the free utilities available with each drive, unless your operating system is ancient (e.g. XP).

All the best with the transfer!