Optical drive for a Latitude E5530?

I bought an E5530 for a friend off the outlet and mucked up slightly as it doesn't have an optical drive (only a blanking plate), I just assumed it would come with one. I'm having trouble finding a drive, as far a I can tell the drive is specific to the E5530 and the E5430? There are a few drives for sale on ebay but the ones claiming to be for the laptop are just standard drives and state you have to take the parts off the existing drive which is no good.

Is it just a standard sata drive with a custom bezel and back plate? Is it possible to use another bezel say for an E5500 drive which would functionally work but wouldn't look very pretty? I did check the price with Dell for another one but it's a rather ridiculous £150, a USB drive is an option but an internal drive would obviously be a lot neater. I'm in the UK so finding spare parts here isn't quite as easy.

Thanks for any help, I have asked on the Dell forums but the response from Dell wasn't very helpful.

John

 

Yes, it is just a regular SATA optical drive with a proprietary tab on the back and faceplate in the front.

Technically you don't need either for the drive to work; the tab only prevents it from falling out, and the faceplate only makes it look good.

You should also be able to return it within some timeframe though... and find another with an optical drive?