Seagate Technology on Monday plans to announce the first manufacturer to sell laptop PCs with Seagate's new hard drive that has built-in encryption technology.

Fremont, Calif.-based ASI Computer Technologies will start selling computers equipped with Seagate's Momentus 5400 FDE.2 drive next month, Seagate said in a statement. The computers, called ASI C8015, will be sold through a number of ASI's partners, including Newegg.com, PowerNotebooks.com and ZipZoomfly.com, an ASI representative said.

In addition to an 80GB Seagate drive, the ASI machine will feature a fingerprint reader, 15.4-inch display, Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile 2.0GHz processor, Nvidia graphics with 256MB memory, 1GB RAM and a DVD rewritable drive, according to ASI. The price is expected to be about $2,150.

The Seagate drives are equipped with the company's new "DriveTrust" technology, which the company promotes as a simpler way to safeguard data stored on laptops. The encryption technology is designed to make life tougher for computer thieves and to prevent embarrassing breaches.