Replacement HD for Inspiron 6000?

The hard drive on my trusty Inspiron 6000 gave up the ghost and I'm planning on buying a replacement drive (I plan to give the I6000 to my 9yo daughter for xmas, as I get myself an XPS 15!). I'm shopping online and I'm finding that the cost to replace the drive with one of the same Dell part number is much more $ than I thought it would be.

I then searched for Inspiron 6000 compatible drives and found some reasonably priced alternatives. Here's the best one so far:
341-2054 60GB 5400 RPM ATA-6 Internal Hard Drive for Dell Inspiron 6000

So, my quesstions:
1. Can I trust the person on the other end of the line who assures my that the drive I'm looking at is compatible?
2. Any recommendations on sites where I can shop?

TIA!

BTW, here's a copy and paste of the drive I want to replace, from my system config page on dell.com:
M7601 Hard Drive, 60GB, 9.5MM, 7.2K Hitachi, Ibm Moraga

 

How old is this machine?

You've linked a PATA drive that looks lousy value. Assuning it needs an IDE/PATA drive (double check this) then this is the usually recommended drive: Samsung HM160HC 160GB 5400prm PATA: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics It should be cheaper and perform better.

Depending on the age of your machine, it is possible that you might hit what's called the 137GB limit. There are usually ways around this, but I'm not familiar with the 6000 so I can't be absolutely sure.... But it really should work by splitting the drive into 2 partitions.

Any PATA 9.5mm drive up to 120GB should work without any issues.

 

Thanks for the response, Nankuru, I appreciate it.

The machine's five years old. I guess I'll have to open it up to get more details on my current drive's specs; the copy and paste I posted (from my machine's specs on my dell account) is all I know about the drive now.

Frankly, drive size is of secondary importance. As long as I can get at least, say 50 GB, I'm happiest with the cheapest drive I can use. This machine will be for my 9 year old after all.

I'll look into your link. I'm in the US, BTW.

 

No worries.

When PATA was superceded by SATA most manufacturers didn't update their PATA drive ranges except to put the prices up

Samasung and Western Digital did produce better and perhaps more reliable drives. That Samsung is likely to be as cheap as anything which is why I recommended it.