is this a right choice?

That HDD will work with your current hardware.  If the space (120GB) is enough for your needs, then it is a good choice.  I have had nothing less than good experiences with Seagate.

If space wasn't an issue before and you don't want to do an upgrade you can do a lot better than $60+ for a 120GB Seagate.

I use Geeks.com as they have great deals, great service and fast shipping. You can also replace your 40GB IDE drive with the same from Geeks for under $30.

http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=HDD

Or you can get a Seagate Barracuda 7200 200GB UDMA/100 7200RPM 8MB IDE HDD for under $40.
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ST3200820A-R&cat=HDD

The Barracude is a great drive and this one offers 8MB Cache verse the 2MB one you are looking at.

Seagate, WD, Maxtor or Samsung would be fine. If you can still live with 40GB you can get a refur WD for $23.99 - http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=WD400BB-R&cat=HDD

You can always thru in a PCI SATA card or even a RAID card for under $10 - http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CX-VT6421A&cpc=SCH

And if your Fan doesn't have a SATA power you can get an adapter for $8.99
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PYO2LP4SATA-DT&cat=PWR

or even a new bigger P/S for just $15.99
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=VT-480-24&cat=PWR

Just depends on what you want or need.  If your 40GB drive was fine, just get another one for $25 and be done.

If you need more space (and want a little more speed) you can easily upgrade to a SATA drive by droping in a PCI card and the power adapter.

Get an IDE drive with any cheapest prices that you can get from where you live. 40G or 80G hard drive should be fine with such old system you have there. I would not spend much for an old system, instead I would invest once for a new system nowaday since PC is now cheaper a lot.

5 or 6 years ago, you might spend 1000 bucks for that system, and now about 1/2 price you could have nice, new, power, and up-to-date system on your desk!

Hi thx2-net,

Thanks for your comments and links  I liked the 2nd link but it is UDMA/100  and my current hdd is ATA/IDE. Will that work?

Regards.

Hi PUNKY,

That's true, of course I spent half of it at the time but this PC is only for surfing/typing purpose not programming or developement.

I rechecked the links you had sent (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ST3200820A-R&cat=HDD) but it  seems the hard drive is re-certified and its warranty is only 180 days!

Any idea? seems risky.

The 120GB Seagate you asked about is "perfect" for this purpose.   It's an excellent drive, is available NEW for only $43.36 including shipping [based on my ZIP ... yours may vary a bit] at the link you provided (see the 2nd source on the list); and is the largest drive you can buy without any concerns about a 28-bit logical block addressing limit, which may very well effect a system of that age.

I would not buy anything smaller (too little price difference) or larger (possible LBA addressing limit); nor would I bother with an add-in card to use a SATA drive [there's NO appreciable performance difference between IDE and SATA]

I agree that's a great choice.

The English translation of that Technobabble gary spit out is this:
-
Some older systems can't take drives over ~127GB.
Since the drive you are looking at is under that it will work with both new and older systems and you don't even have to think about problem.

ATA/IDE refers to the basic technology and UDMA/100 to a specific version of it.

ATA/IDE includes UDMA/33, UDMA/66, UDMA/100, UDMA/133.
ATA-33, ATA-66, ATA-100, ATA-133 -or- DMA-33, DMA-66,,,, and so on are all different 'names' for the same thing.

- The number at the end is simply how fast the interface can transfer data in MB/sec.

Also know that:
ATA-5 = UDMA/100
ATA-6 = UDMA/133

The controller has a speed rating and the drive has a speed rating but they do not have to match. They will both run at the speed of whichever is slower but they will work fine.
[In other words UDMA/33, UDMA/66, UDMA/100, UDMA/133 drives and controllers can be mix/matched.]

BUT [and for future reference]: IDE drives *OVER* ~127GB *MUST* be used with at least a ATA-5 controller due to the issue that you don't need to think about this time.

~~

Deal-Stop-Store is the eBay outlet for Legend Micro.
[Ships out of Ohio and not Hong Kong or something strange.]

http://cgi.ebay.com/SEAGATE-120GB-7200-IDE-2MB-ST3120023A-Hard-Drive_W0QQitemZ280247699289QQihZ018QQcategoryZ64462QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1713.m153.l1262

http://www.legendmicro.com/store/more_info.asp?Product_ID=6126&OpenTreeBranches=0&SortBy=0

.

"... technobabble ..."  ??  Well, okay.  28 bit logical block addressing simply means that the addresses of the sectors on the disk use 28 bits, so there can't be more than 2^28 sectors ... which works out to 137GB [not 127 :-) ].   Newer disk controllers and operating systems support 48 bit addresses, so they support much larger disks => but a 120GB disk is "perfect" for an older system, since it's the largest disk you can buy that avoids that issue altogether.

Nice to know Deal-Stop-Store (the 2nd link I referred to where the drive is only $35 plus shipping) is well known.

Bottom line:  As I noted above, the drive you asked about is indeed "perfect" for what you want to do ... and at only $35 I can't think of any reason to even consider anything else :-)

Actually it's 137.438,953,472 GB which = 128GiB.
I commonly se the same barrier referred to as any of 127/128/136/137 GB.
That's why the ~
Which means: "about", "approximately", "something like".
No one I know of made 120GB[+ a little] 28-bit drives so precision on that number doesn't matter much.

I just figured address schemes are a little beyond the asker's knowledge level in this area and wanted to avoid having he or she having to look it all up to figure out what you were talking about.

.

PSU's I use to work with had to be tuned to +/- .0005 volts.