It's pretty simple to swap out the drive. You'll see your memory access door is located about in the middle of your computer. If you open that door, there will be a small tab with a screw securing it. Remove that screw and you can push your drive out. As the other person mentioned, you can find these instructions in the service manual that is available online from Dell. The service manuals for the most part are very easy to follow.
If you purchase a non-Dell provided blu-ray drive, you would need to remove that tab piece from your current drive to put on the new one. Also, you would want to swap out the faceplate on the new blu-ray with the one from your current drive.
As of January 2011, Dell does not offer just the faceplate for sale. You can only purchase the entire drive. I had pulled the blu-ray from an e4300 and it appears the faceplate is just a little different, as was the metal tab. So without buying the drive from Dell or finding the exact Dell drive elsewhere for the e4310, you'll end up at best with a faceplate just a little off or using your current faceplate that doesn't have the blu-ray logo on it.
If you are looking elsewhere to purchase, be sure to ask specific questions about whether the drive has the correct faceplate for the e4310.
All that said, you may or may not be happy with the blu-ray drive. If you want it mainly to watch movies, firmware updates aren't available as often (mine doesn't have any yet) as desktop drives and home players so many newer movies will not play.
ieee488
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11.1K Posts
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September 30th, 2010 09:00
You'll need to download and read the service manual for this model laptop.
KMcCoy33
1 Message
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January 4th, 2011 22:00
It's pretty simple to swap out the drive. You'll see your memory access door is located about in the middle of your computer. If you open that door, there will be a small tab with a screw securing it. Remove that screw and you can push your drive out. As the other person mentioned, you can find these instructions in the service manual that is available online from Dell. The service manuals for the most part are very easy to follow.
If you purchase a non-Dell provided blu-ray drive, you would need to remove that tab piece from your current drive to put on the new one. Also, you would want to swap out the faceplate on the new blu-ray with the one from your current drive.
As of January 2011, Dell does not offer just the faceplate for sale. You can only purchase the entire drive. I had pulled the blu-ray from an e4300 and it appears the faceplate is just a little different, as was the metal tab. So without buying the drive from Dell or finding the exact Dell drive elsewhere for the e4310, you'll end up at best with a faceplate just a little off or using your current faceplate that doesn't have the blu-ray logo on it.
If you are looking elsewhere to purchase, be sure to ask specific questions about whether the drive has the correct faceplate for the e4310.
All that said, you may or may not be happy with the blu-ray drive. If you want it mainly to watch movies, firmware updates aren't available as often (mine doesn't have any yet) as desktop drives and home players so many newer movies will not play.