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    Upgrade M17x R3 DVD ODD to Blu-ray ODD from Studio XPS 1647

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by aggiechick, Dec 5, 2012.

  1. aggiechick

    aggiechick Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'm waiting on an outlet M17x R3 to arrive. It came configured with a DVD ODD, and I'd like to upgrade it to Blu-ray ODD. My old Studio XPS 1647 has a Blu-ray ODD, which is slot load, and I'd like to just swap the ODDs between the two laptops. How do I find out if there will be an issue with this? I'm guessing that after I do the swap, if it is feasible, I'll have to find the appropriate drivers. Any ideas?

    Thanks!
    Tammy
     
    aggiechick, Dec 5, 2012
    #1
  2. radji

    radji Farewell, Solenya...

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    Optical drives don't use specific drivers anymore...at least the countless one's I've installed don't. After perusing the Studio XPS 1647 manual, I conclude that the swap is possible. According to the pictures, the Studio XPS uses a slot-loading slim-line SATA ODD, same as our Alienwares. Optical drives... all optical drives are meant to be plug and play. So you should be able to just pop the DVD drive out of your R3 and slide in your blu-ray drive and away you go. Be warned though, it is an enormous amount of work to get to the optical drive in an R3. You have to disassemble and remove a lot of components including the LCD screen. Just be aware of that before you start on this endeavor.
     
    radji, Dec 5, 2012
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  3. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    As above, also remember you will need bluray playback software too.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Dec 5, 2012
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  4. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

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    Agreed with both. It should work fine. Good luck on your quest! :cool:
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, Dec 6, 2012
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  5. aggiechick

    aggiechick Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thank you, everyone! I did find the You Tube video on the M17x R3 teardown, so I think I'm good to go once my new laptop arrives. I also found the software that I had on my XPS and will look for an upgrade to that. I may even just try downloading a copy of CyberLink Power DVD (BD version) from My Dell Downloads for my XPS to see if that will work.
     
    aggiechick, Dec 6, 2012
    #5