Where can I find a DVD drive for a G62 HP laptop ?

Usually its going to be much much cheaper to buy a usb dvd drive if the internal drive on a laptop stops working. If you really have to have an internal drive the ones that came up for me are below.

Not making any promises, but this drive came up when I was searching.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Compaq-DVD%C2%B1RW-Burner-TS-L...

Few on ebay as well: http://compare.ebay.com/like/260967674310?var=lv&ltyp=A...

That's a good idea, but will I be able to reinstall Windows 7 without any issue from an USB DVD drive ?

Yes, you can install windows from a USB DVD drive. I actually never install an OS from optical media any more, been using an SD card for years. DVDs are very slow compared to even modest thumb drives. Win7 installs from a USB stick in about 15 minutes, start to finish, while with a DVD that's closer to an hour.

I don't even have a DVD drive on my desktop anymore. When I need to install something from a DVD I pop the disc in my backup computer, rip the image and put that on my SD card. Tends to be faster, even with the extra steps, because you can rip DVDs totally sequentially and your drive will run faster during ripping than it would while installing.

Yes as Willard mentioned.

If you are just re-installing Windows once I wouldn't bother with the flash drive etc, and maybe try to borrow a usb dvd drive from someone.

Thanks guys but I just came across internal DVD drive offers that are quite affordable

So I'll go for it. All laptop DVD drives share the same format and compatibility right ?

Laptop drive casings are very specific to machines, they are not interchangeable at all between brands and sometimes even models made by the same manufacture.

That link didn't work for me.

Nope. Very few drives work for more than a handful of laptops.

I've replaced the DVD drive in two Toshibia Laptops. Wanted a Blu-ray rom/dvd-rw.
1) Generally speaking they are a generic drive and in my case I used a sony drive. The only thing is generally the Faceplate, in both cases I simply pooped the faceplate off and swaped them, put the faceplate from the Toshibia DVD drive on the sony drive.
DO verify that the drive is a SATA drive and Not a PATA drive (just remove yours and look at the connector). My A205 was a Pata drive and the A305 was a SATA drive.
The SATA Blu-ray drive was twice the cost of the exact same drive in PATA - Ended up ordering it from Taiwan.

For HP replacement drive (BUT WAS over priced)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

The USB suggest is a good alternative as is the "usb thumdrive" idea.
I do often put my Movies on a thumbdrive (stuck 24 Movie on a 64 gig Thumdrive).

One big advantage of the thumdrive is errors - For a DVD that you make, if you evaluate the "quality" of the write you will generally find 100s of correctable errors.

Will look somemore at a Replacement drive as they are out there and should be under a 50 Bucks.

$25 (Samsung) - http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...
$40 (Sony) - http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...

Ok. Well my laptop is this : http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/hp-g62-105sa-laptop-i3-...

And I'm considering buying this DVD drive for it : http://www.ebuyer.com/277268-samsung-sn-208bb-sata-dvd-...

Do you think it will be compatible ?

Looks like the correct dimentions (as I mentioned almost all of these drives have the same form factor. You may need to pop the faceplate and swap them. But the face plates pop off pretty easily and are generally swappable. I did have problem with the sony Blu-ray drive faceplate, toshibia faceplate would not fit on the Sony, But a very quick mod to the sony faceplate (had to cut a small noch out of it) worked, and you would never notice that I modded it.

I'd say go for it.

That has not been my exp with laptop drives at all. Work primarily with Lenovo machines and in-between models very often they will not fit properly. The connection will be on the opposite side of the drive, of they have tabs inside the machine to make sure only certain drives fit etc. Just my personal exp which sounds like is quite diff then Chiefs.

It was a half bad idea to go for it. The Samsung drive fits in the laptop, but there's a problem with the screw connecting the drive to the laptop at the bottom of the drive. So I have to rely on the SATA plugs to maintain the drive still, which sucks a bit !

Might be able to Mod it.

I'm not a very good modder  

Glue it in?

Well that's kind of bold ! Sure it would be maintained inside but what if I want to remove it later for some reason ?