Laptop hard drives: are ATA-6 and ATA-5 drives compatible?

KingNothing

Diamond Member
Apr 6, 2002
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A friend of mine has a Dell Inspiron 5000e that needs a new hard drive. From Hitachi's site, the current hard drive is a 10GB, 4200 RPM, ATA-5 drive.

The cheaper hard drives on Newegg's site are ATA-6. Will those be compatible with his laptop or does he need to get a drive specifically marked ATA-5?