Replacing a dead DVD burner in a laptop

G'day all
My DVD burner in my HP Pavilion Entertainment PC has stopped working.....
It's been playing up for a few weeks and now nothing
Since it does get adaily workout I am just assuming it wore itself out
So I have been looking at options to replace it but not sure which way to go
Money IS an issue
I thought about purchasing an external hard drive and then just plugging that into my TV via USB to watch movies I download etc, but then I wouldn't have a DVD drive if I ever needed to use it
Should I try and replace the one that's dead???
Or what about an external DVD Burner??
Any comments ideas would be greatly appreciated
Cheers
Wendy

 

Greetings, Wandaful...

Have you tried all of the normal attempts to verify that the drive is indeed bad? Some you may not have tried: Microsift's Fix it, booting into your BIOS to verify that the drive is present, verification that the drive is listed in My Computer, attempting to boot to the drive, etc...

If you've tried these and/or you're convinced that the drive is mechanically beyond salvage, then you do have a couple of options. As you've mentioned, an external burner may suffice - but replacing the internal optical is usually a very easy task.

 

If you decide to replace the internal DVD drive, remove the old one and look at the connections carefully.

Although some HP/Compaq models use a standard SATA connection internal DVD drive, there are others that use a proprietary (read: available only from HP and very expensive) connection drive. If this is the case, I'd go with plodr's advice on the external drive.