You can certainly use the HP5 column in your GC-MS as it has identical separation characteristics as the HP5-ms.  What you may get is more column bleed as the '-ms' columns are specifically designed to be low bleed.  However your HP5-ms column may not be unusable.  It depends how long it has been open to the air and in what context (put away in a box/kicking around on the lab bench).  If you trim about 20 cm off each end and recondition it, or do a few blank runs with a high top temperature or just set the oven to about 300 ° C for an hour or so, it might be OK.  Check its performance by running some standard mixtures - we use an alkane mix.  You will have to condition your new column anyway so this will not take any longer. 

The documents below should help with this and it's easy to find more reliable information on the internet about columns and how to treat and use them.  Manufacturers often provide this kind of information free on their websites (as with the documents attached).  A good book on GC-MS will also give useful information on these issues.

Hi Valerie,

Thank you very much for your reply, it is much appreciated. The HP5-MS colum was basically just placed on top of the GC-MS instrument itself and left there for around 2 months the lab technicians have informed me - I'm not sure how accurate this is as I don't usually use this lab. I shall try your suggestions and see if there is any improvement. I had previously heated the column at 300C overnight, but I had not trimmed either side of it.

Best wishes,

Joe

Hi Joseph,

I too agreed with answer valerie , Columns HP-5 and HP-5 MS are identical , the only difference is MS columns are low bleed. There two grades of column as for GC-MS or GCMSMS or with other sensitive detectors , MS columns are recommended to avoid interference of column bleeding.