Installing Caddy in the NP8150

From what I understand, I need to reconfirm this with XoticPC, but it sounds like they charge $40 for the Optical Drive Caddy. You can either have it come with it inside the laptop or have it come seperately, with the Optical Drive still inside, both for the same price of $40. My guess is the labor to install the caddy is paid for by the price of the optical drive.

To decrease the risk of any reported freezing issues or any other possible issues, upon arrival of my laptop, I am going to do a clean install of the OS and drivers.

So I think my plan is:

Get the laptop. Wipe the HD and reinstall Windows/drivers. After everything is all done that needs an optical drive, I will take out the optical drive, install the caddy and my secondary HD and than put my optical drive in an enclosure, making an external USB Optical Drive.

My question:

How difficult do you think it would be to take out the optical drive and install the caddy/HD? My only previous expierience with the inside of a computer is upgrading the RAM in my old iMac. There doesn't appear to be any guides online as to how to do this, besides for the opening the NP8150, so I would most likely have to figure it out on my own.

Will this enclosure work with the Optical Drive that comes with the NP8150?
Amazon.com: USB 2.0 External Slim CD/DVD Drive Enclosure Case For Laptop Notebook CD-RW DVD Drive with IDE Connector (Only Case!!): Electronics

Thank you very much.

 

I got my 8150 from Malibal with a caddy. They didn't include an ODD and sent me the caddy at no charge. They're easy to change out. You just open the HDD bay on the bottom of the laptop, remove the one screw holding in the ODD, and push the drive out. Do the reverse to install the caddy. It's like 5 minutes.

No, that caddy you linked won't work. It's IDE only. You need a SATA version. You need one like this Newegg.com - SYBA CL-ENC55001 5.25" USB 2.0 External Enclosure for Slim SATA CD/DVD Drive/writer

Check out my review if you want pics of where the hdd bay cover is, but it's pretty obvious (it's the smallish bay in the center of the laptop. Remove the two screws to open it, remove the only screw in there to pull the caddy free).
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...7-sager-8150-malibal-lotus-p150hm-review.html

PM me if you need more detailed info though.

Also, you don't need the optical drive to install windows if you have a flash drive laying around.
Kevin’s Blog

You just need to make sure you use the USB 2.0 ports if you use USB, as the 3.0 aren't recognized until you can install the drivers.

I don't use optical drives enough to need the internal drive. I just bought an external Asus Blu-ray drive for $50 and use that when I want to watch movies.

 

Thank you for the very detailed response. I appreciate it.