Do I need a new hard drive & can I use Leopard?

I have a PowerBook G4 17" 1.5Ghz with OS X 10.3.9 on the original 80GB hard drive, I've been getting a lot of problems with the computer acting very slowly and getting 'hung up' with the color wheel spinning endlessly, during which nothing responds, I can't force quit, the only thing I can do is force a shut by holding down the power key. Sometimes it takes a long time to start up. I've tried re-installing the OS but still the same problems. I ran the Apple Hardware Test which gave this error code "2STF/4/3:ATA-100 ata-6-MASTER".
Does this all mean that my hard drive is going down and I need a new one?
Can I use any size hard drive e.g. a 250GB one?
Also - If I put a new hard drive in can I then install Leopard?
All info received with many thanks.

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
That code means there are problems with your hard drive. If you look at Disk utility (on your hard disk in applications/utilities) you may see that the S.M.A.R.T. status shows a problem. Or if you have SMARTreporter installed, it may not be green.
You can certainly use up to a 160GB hard drive. There was a discussion recently suggesting a BIOS (basic input output services) limit to 160GB ... I don't know if that's real or not.
If you do replace your hard drive, you might consider the slight price premium for a 7200rpm drive. You'll appreciate the extra snapiness in response time. And yes, you can install Leopard on it. After installing the new hard drive, boot from the DVD drive and use disk utility to format the hard drive in mac os extended (journaled) format. Then you can install Leopard.

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