Laptop Optical Drives - a stupid question

[jimmy the saint]

I am buying a bare bones laptop because my Dell inspiron's MoBo just crapped out. for 200 bucks it beats buying a new one at this point. I am interested in upgrading the optical drive to a dvd burner though. I have never really thought about upgrading a laptop before so I never looked into this type of thing. Are laptop optical drives universal? If I just go to newegg and buy one, should it fit? I know Dell modifies theirs, but I assume that most non branded machines should be more universal.

Thank you!!

 

[SuperNaruto]

nope, some have smaller or larger connector.. google or ebay for the part number

even dells inspiron and latitude have different connectors

 

[dementedlemur]

Nearly all laptop optical drives are going to have the same interface on the drive itself. What you're going to need to find out is if you need a drive caddy for it and if the faceplate it comes with will work with your laptop.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about from an older Latitude and Inspiron series:
http://www.parts-people.com/in...previd=140&prevstart=0

 

[corkyg]

The drives themselves are fairly universal, but the carrier or caddy is generally proprietary.

 

[pcgeek11]

There is also another point to watch for as some notebooks require the drive to be internally jumpered to be slave or master drive.

Usually the Caddy ( if needed ), the connector adapter ( if needed ), Drive faceplate, and Mounting hardware can just be moved from the old drive to the new drive.

pcgeek11

 

[corkyg]

And now you have to consider the use of SATA drives. Most new laptops are using SATA - no more MASTER/SLAVE jumpers, but the internal connectors can vary by OEM. This picture shows the current IBM/Lenovo Ultrabay caddies. On the left one can drop in a second HDD. The module on the right contains the DVD burner, but is sealed and requires more to open it.

Ultra

Once you get inside, the basic component is pretty much standard. In this case, Lenovo uses a Matsushita (Panasonic) DVD drive.