Variable Dependent Drop Downs

I'm a bit of a novice at excel. Maybe an advanced novice. I've got most of the basics down and maybe a few semi-advanced things but seems I'm barely scratching the surface. I've done some drop down lists and used Hlookup and Vlookup on a few things so I can muddle my way thru a bit. I'm working on a little project where I want to have different sections that I want each section to have a drop down list at the top and then, depending on what selection is made at the top, I can have drop down list below that pertain to that selection. In the attached worksheet I have a layout on sheet 1 and have added drop down lists that sort of work on a limited bases. Sheet 2 is the range. I use Hlookup just to get something going but I'm probably using the wrong formula. Maybe Vlookup? Or something else. I know nothing about VBA. I've pretty much learned anything I know by trial and much error and scouring the internet. I'll keep working with this but thought I'd throw it out there to someone smarter than me and maybe I could cut down some time.

thanks
mike

Thanks for the reply. I'm not familiar at all with pivot tables but I've seen them mentioned quite a bit. Just haven't had the time to learn about them. I'm not sure if the first worksheet I attached had all the drop downs I wanted so I added them and attached again. This is the way I want it to work. It kind of works but not really. Probably not the right way about it. In sheet 1 I have the drop downs for the different categories working fine. But using Hlookup on the second sheet in row I, I have I1 dependent on sheet 1 A5. If I change sheet 1, A5 to a different category then it correctly gives the proper drop down lists below. However, the other sections further down also reference those items connected to the category selected in A5. Example is if you select Category 2 in sheet 1, A5 you will get the proper drop down lists of Category 2 items. But if you select Category 4 in sheet 1, A24 you will also get the category items for Category 2 since sheet 2, I1 is referencing the specific cell A5 in sheet 1.
Sorry so long and hope I didn't confuse. It's hard to explain when you don't know what you're doing!

thanks again
mike

I'll work on this and see if I can figure it out. I've named the category items Cat 1 Item 1 and so on, only to reference them to Category 1 and same with Category 2, etc. My final project will have names for the categories and probably a 2 or 3 work for items. Each category will have different items as well as different number of items to select from. But if I select Category 2 I want only the items associated with category 2 to be in the drop down list below. Same with category 5, the drop down lists will only have category 5 selection in the drop down lists.

thanks
mike