question: Laptop drive stealthing

I'm about to buy a DVD-RW for my Vaio but was thinking of being original and going for a slot loading drive. My only concern is this>

and


What do I do about the current bezel? My only option is either no bezel, and then my Vaio will look ugly, or a dremel job to make a slot in the current bezel. How feasable does this seem? I have never dremeled anything.

The last option would be to have a new custom bezel made (maintain the curve and have a slot for the discs) which would obviously be the best option but I have no idea how to go about doing that. Maybe someone here is capable of doing this?

Any input and ideas would be welcome!

If you have a few bezels to mess up on... you may want to try dremeling till you get it right.

But remember that once you have the shape right for the slot (and please use a straight edge) that you will likley need to repaint the bezel to match.

Thats a standered laptop cd drive. Just remove the front plate from that one and put it onto the new one. They pop on and off vertically.. study it some. They normally have a clip on the bottom in the center... release that and they slide up. NORMALLY

The faceplates on slot-loading drives are not removable though. And a tray drive won't have the slot holes for the disc.
Different drive models have the locking tabs, button, light, etc. in different spots. Welcome to the annoyances of proprietary tech.

you may need to get a replacement drive made by the same company that makes the one in there now, but if you do then you can just pull off the bezel and attach it to the new drive, i have done this several times in the past with an IBM and Gateway laptop

I smell a tricky mod a stiring...

Your other option is getting a tray-load, if you don't want to go through the hassle of making a bezel.

maybe... put somethin to keep the slot in, then use bondo or something to build up the new bezel a whole lot, then sand / file / reshape it down to the curvature, then paint it? im not sure what you would use to fill in where the slot would be, maybe a sheet of an old case panel or somethin else, and wrap it with a layer of packing tape, then grease it up with somethin (maybe like PAM or turtle wax) then put on a layer of seran wrap (for like coverin a plate of cookies) and another layer of grease to be sure it'll come out then secure it straight into the original bezel, then start goin to town on the filler material. then once hard, work the piece out and start filing it down.

edit: that was a little redundant wasnt it?