Quick Question Concerning a Laptop IDE Harddrive Replacement

[Ultralight]

So I am over at my sister's place Friday night and she asked me if I would like a Laptop . I said sure, let me take a look. It is an old Toshiba Tecra S1 (from about 2003) that she got from work and it is actually in decent shape (for a company work laptop that has been passed on to several employees) and solidly built. I have fiddled around with it for 2 days and suprisingly it is very stable.

It has the latest BIOS (from 2005) and I was able to upgrade the Intel wireless driver that was dated from 2006. All USB ports are working (unfortunately no S-Video or Firewire). It has Windows XP Pro and I was able to install SP2 without a hitch (why no one upgraded to SP2 before this I haven't a clue. The cpu is a 1.4 GHz Pentium M. It also has a DVD/CD-R drive.

The only thing that I see as a drawback (besides old tech and the need to upgrade the RAM from 512 PC2100 to 2 Gigs of PC2700)) is that the harddrive is a mere 40 GBs. I know very little about laptop hardware except the basics so can anyone suggest what harddrive I should consider as a possible upgrade?

I have researched and I do know it is an Enhanced IDE (ATA-5) but will ATA-6 drives work as a substitution? NewEgg has them at a good price but I don't want to spend my hard earned cash on a harddrive that won't work as backwards compatible.

Thanks.

 

[Brainonska511]

ATA-6 drives should work with no problem. Though, larger hard drives (say, larger than 150GB, even with the latest BIOS) may not work properly.

 

[Ultralight]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511
ATA-6 drives should work with no problem. Though, larger hard drives (say, larger than 150GB, even with the latest BIOS) may not work properly.

Thanks for the quick reply and the heads-up information. I wasn't thinking anymore than 120 but since it is old and I don't know how long it will last I might even go 80GB.

Again, thanks, you were most helpful.