I need a replacement laptop cd-rw

[cubby1223]

I am looking around for a replacement drive for a laptop of a guy I know. It's a Dell Inspiron 8000, and the bad cd-rw drive is Dell part number 996NF. I have searched a bit around the net, and prices seem to be $75-$100 for this 8x cd-rw drive. I think that might be a bit pricey for what it is.

I've never owned a laptop, so never really checked out parts for them. Can pretty much any after-market drive work, or do I have to do some extensive research on compatible drives? Is there any good starting place on the web?

 

[OdiN]

No...that is about the right price I would expect. I usually buy from Impact Computers for laptop parts when I am repairing them - they have most everything I need.

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You can't really buy a generic for that model I don't think. Some you can and simply swap the housing and put the housing on the new drive - but that one I don't think you can. I could be wrong. You may see if you can remove all the housing from a drive to see if it will fit on another generic...HOWEVER the price won't be all that much different.