How to display the latest 5 posts

Hi, I am not an expert in PHP, and I have a code which displays only an excerpt of the latest post. I am looking to change this in changing it to display the latest 5 posts. I hope someone can help me with the code. Thanks in advance.

The original code is the following:

[please mark any code using the ‘code’ button or backticks as described in the forum guidelines for posting code – the code below is already partially corrupted]

<div class="clearfloat">
	<h3 class="cat_title"><?php the_category(', '); ?> ?</h3>
	<h2 class="title"><a>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
    <?php colabs_post_meta(); ?>
    <?php
		$latest_thumb=get_option('colabs_latest_post_thumb');
		if($latest_thumb!='No'){
		$width = get_option ( "colabs_thumbWidth_LatestPost" );
		$height = get_option ( "colabs_thumbHeight_LatestPost" );
		if ( $width == 0 ) { $width = 150; }
		if ( $height == 0 ) { $height = 150; }
        colabs_pp('width='.$width.'&height='.$height.'&size=medium-thumb&play=true&wrapper_class=left&link=img');
		}
	?>
	<?php the_excerpt(__('Read the full story ?','colabsthemes')); ?> <a>" rel="bookmark">Read the full story ?</a>
	</div>