Superdrive replacement. Can be done?

I have a MacBook Pro 17 C2D 2,33 late 2006. My superdrive is not working properly. So I have tried to change it. I have found a Toshiba-Samsung Ts-T632A/SIBH DVD writer, I connected it and ... nothing. The computer does not recognize the drive. In the "about this Mac" menu nothing is listed under the ATA tab. Is it futile to try to use it as an internal drive or I can do something about it? Is any other , not Apple branded, drive that I can use?
Thank you
P.S. This is my first post. Glad to be here.:Blushing:

"Superdrive replacement, Can be done?"...

Absolutely...anything can be done...you just need the correct part (assuming the part you have does not fix things).

Here's the part I would recommend:

With software:

OWC MMB7SD8XDLK Mercury MacBook Pro 17" 12.7mm... in stock at OWC

Without software:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MMB7SD8XDL/

HTH,

- Nick

Thank you for your reply. Do you know what is the reason this can not be done?

sknikos said:

Thank you for your reply. Do you know what is the reason this can not be done?

Click to expand...

You mean why your Toshiba drive is not supported? Apple only supports a limited range of Optical drives in OSX. I don't think Apple uses Toshiba optical drives, thus no support.

The URL Pigoo gave will do it for you. You can use external USB drives but be sure they are supported by OSX.

But do you know how this is implemented? I mean there is something in the firmware or has it to do with master/slave configuration? I thought that all ATA drives follow the same protocols and they are fully interchangeable. Obviously this is not the case. So how do they do it?