Replacement Optical Drive

Hiyas. I have an inspiron 1520 with a Pioneer DVD+-RW DR-K17Y.
An error occured yesterday when i was copying a movie and now the drive wont read dvds.

I have a few questions. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
My Dell warranty hasn't expired yet.

Is there anyway dell could send me a replacement dvd drive
so i could just install it myself?

Or will i have to send them my entire laptop?

And finally, How should i go about solving this issue?

Thanks!
My specs are:
Inspiron 1520 / Windows XP / Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz / 8600m gt
2 Gigs of ram / 120 GB Hard Drive

 

Yes, since it's in warranty, just give tech support a call, and jump through their hoops (they'll usually have you run some tests to make sure it's dead).
Then they'll ship you out a replacement drive, mostly likely next day air, so you can replace it yourself.
Then, you use the return slip and box, and send back the old one to them at no cost to you.
But you have to call DHL, or whomever the carrier is, to arrange a pickup to send it back.

 

Thanks!
Make it seem so easy lol

 

For future reference, replacement laptop optical drives are fairly inexpensive to buy - should you have to.
Newegg sell 'em for as little as $35.

Alternatively... you could just buy an external drive.
External drives are basically a standard desktop optical drive, in an external enclosure.
They're subsequently as fast as standard desktop drives (up to 22x), and invariably a lot faster than laptop drives (typically 8x)