Replace Optical Drive: laptop

After spending considerable time diagnosing a problem on a friends
laptop I believe his DVD drive needs to be replaced. From what I can
tell the "lock screw tab" for lack of a better name is in different
locations on my laptop compared to where it is on his laptop drive.

Does anyone know if any slim DVD drive work or are there other
compatibility issues I should be looking out for?

Thanks in advance for any help provided.

oh and it is a fairly new Dell inspirion laptop.

"bscottberg" <bscottberg@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1187014469.966922.59850@k79g2000hse.googlegro ups.com...
>
> After spending considerable time diagnosing a problem on a friends
> laptop I believe his DVD drive needs to be replaced. From what I can
> tell the "lock screw tab" for lack of a better name is in different
> locations on my laptop compared to where it is on his laptop drive.
>
> Does anyone know if any slim DVD drive work or are there other
> compatibility issues I should be looking out for?
>
Or look for something like this....
http://www.val-u-computers.co.uk/aca...op_spares.html

"bscottberg" <bscottberg@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1187014469.966922.59850@k79g2000hse.googlegro ups.com...
>
> After spending considerable time diagnosing a problem on a friends
> laptop I believe his DVD drive needs to be replaced. From what I can
> tell the "lock screw tab" for lack of a better name is in different
> locations on my laptop compared to where it is on his laptop drive.
>
> Does anyone know if any slim DVD drive work or are there other
> compatibility issues I should be looking out for?
>
> Thanks in advance for any help provided.
>
> oh and it is a fairly new Dell inspirion laptop.
>

Take out the drive and view its interface connector in the back.
You can run the serial /part /model number through google to get some replacement ideas.
Usually the locking bracket gets removed from the old and fitted to the new.
You can also exchange the front bezel with a little work.