I replaced the optical drive in my MacBook the other day.

And to my surprise, it still works. Replacing hardware inside a laptop is not a task for the easily deterred, and I recommend it only to the most daring.

Now I’m the type of guy who has never been afraid to open up a Mac tower for anything from a memory upgrade to a CPU replacement. But until this week, I had never performed a major hardware upgrade on a laptop, wary of the complexity of getting the case open and the fragility of the components within.

My apprehension -- despite my success -- turned out to be justified.

What drove me to it was the MacBook’s failing optical drive, the factory-installed combo drive (reads and writes CDs, but only reads DVDs).

While on summer vacation I had problems playing a DVD; the DVD player kept hanging or skipping over large sections. I was peeved, as playing DVDs when I’m vacationing is one of the duties I expect of a laptop.

When I got home I ran various tests to confirm the problem was not software or operating system-related. I also found other users in forums who seemed to be having similar problems.

I still waited on the Mac OS X 10.5.5 update just to be absolutely certain. The drive, indeed, was kaput.

What to do next? I bought my MacBook in May of 2006, so I was beyond Apple’s one-year warranty. I considered doing without the drive; I probably could live without DVDs while traveling, and in a pinch the MacBook could access the SuperDrive in my Mac Pro over my home network.

But replacing the drive could get expensive; an optical drive costs about $150, and that doesn’t include installation. Then again, I could save a lot of dough installing it myself.

As I poked around the Web to find out how tough it might be for me to do this myself I found several sites that sell replacement parts and provide free guides, both in video and PDF form, on how to take various systems apart.

Screwing up my courage I ordered a SuperDrive (why not upgrade while I’m at it, eh?) from PowerBook Medic, though iFixit had similarly priced drives. Fortunately, the job requires only two tools, a Philips size #00 screwdriver and a Spudger, a stick-like nylon tool used to pry up connector cables and nudge otherwise stubborn parts.

I set aside an evening to do the job and a good thing, too – it took me about three hours moving at a deliberate and cautious pace.

The reason it takes so long is because of all those darn screws holding the MacBook top case in place. They are almost all tiny, nearly identical but not interchangeable. In other words, you need to keep track of where each screw came from in order to get the correct ones back in their proper places. Otherwise you could have a screw either slightly too large or too small for the hole.

Once you get the top case off, getting the drive out isn’t too difficult, though you need to disconnect several other cables to free up the optical drive. One nasty little screw, the tiniest of them all, is tucked beneath several cables. It’s a bear to get back in.

More headaches: you need to remove several pieces from the old drive and attach them to the new drive, one of which – a plastic piece that hold the Bluetooth antenna in place – is glued on.

After struggling to get the machine back together properly (you have to follow the directions in reverse), I pressed the power button and held my breath. When I saw the Apple logo, I knew the MacBook had survived.

The good news: my new SuperDrive works flawlessly (it’s a Matshita UJ-857E, for those who must know) and is much quieter and faster than the combo drive had been when it still worked. For that matter, it’s much quieter then the SuperDrive in my Mac Pro, which is annoyingly noisy.

But trust me on this one: unless you know what you’re doing and aren’t afraid to put your $1,000-plus (or $2,000-plus for the Pro models) Mac laptop at risk, don’t try this sort of thing at home.