Trying to determine compatible optical drives for a macbook- and losing my mind.

Factual Questions
1

I’ve been researching this for HOURS. All I want to do is find out what, if any NON-APPLE BRANDED optical drives are compatible with a macbook 13" (A1181). All I want is to put a CHEAP but working cd-dvd RW drive in it so I can resell it on Ebay with all it’s parts in working order.

I have removed the original drive in hopes that seeing it would help, and it did a little bit, it helped me avoid making a mistake. But that’s all.

I can’t believe this is so complicated! I am accustomed to swapping out harddrives with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back…laptop or desktop, IDE or SATA… end of story. Evidently not so much in the land of optical! IDE or SATA…but not really sure about the connection, which is wholly unfamiliar. Slot or tray…well, obviously slot. But that distinction is all too frequently left out of descriptions. 9.5mm is the depth, evidently. But there seems to be a GREAT deal more to it than that.

I see other laptop optical drives selling way cheap on ebay, like $10. That’s what I want. This is for resale, so investing a lot is obviously not a good move.

I’ve also been intrigued by the possibility of just using a hard drive adapter, but since the connections are evidently so fussy, I’m afraid to commit there, either!

Any help would be appreciated!

2

If you go to ifixit.com, you can find your way into Mac parts, where you’ll be able to enter the model (a1181) and find compatible drives. If you then look at the details for the various options, you may see one or more model numbers, depending on the particular processor and age of your laptop. The 8x Superdrive option shows three models. Plug these one at a time into Google and you’ll find the drives for sale even cheaper - one example is the used and tested 8x Superdrive for $149 from ifixit, but one of the part numbers is UJ-857-C, which I believe is actually made by Panasonic. Over at eBay, you can find this drive from $50 for a new one. Looks like this particular drive is also used in some Dell laptops. I can’t promise that one sold as for Dell will fit the Mac - there may be differences in mounting brackets, but it may well be possible to swap bits from the old one to a new drive.

3

The process you describe is exactly what I’ve been doing for hours. It’s a slog and it still ends up a crapshot - and “FROM $50” is not the idea. I’m looking for “from $10” with $12, $15, $20 being the range of possibilities.

But I do appreciate your attempt to help.