It's quite bizarre, but for some reason, Dell are not even prepared to sell me the part at all, even for silly money. As such, they are simply losing business, since I don't want an external drive, and if I did I would get it from someone else for less. They told me that the optical drive for the Inspiron 5150 can only be chosen at time of purchase, whatever that means. The drive can be easily replaced with one screw, and if it were broken Dell would do that, so why not sell the new part if people want to upgrade- it's certainly compatible as their web site says??

 

If someone from Dell could explain, that would be great- even better, tell me where I can get the part!

I have a 5150 also, but when i bought it i got the DVD/cdRW. I don't know how old your system is but NEC has a DVD R/W/cd player for the 5150, it's the NEC-6500A and price runs around 165$ depends where you go. I heard it just pops right in. I've been thinking of upgrading myself, eventually.