Replace DVD Drive in an Acer Aspire 8730 laptop

I have an Acer Aspire 8730 laptop and the DVD drive has quit working. (Optiarc DVD RW AD-7580S ATA Device). It will not open most of the time and when I do get it open it will not play any disk. I have been trying to find a replacement drive but can not find one for it. Seems like there is hundreds for every other laptop but mine (LOL Just My Luck).
Just woundering is the a universal one or another one that would work for me?
Thanks for your help in advance!

How about an external drive?

Does the drive show up in Device Manager and if so, are there any red or yellow flags associated with it?

Yes it shows in the device manager and says it is working properly but it is not. As far as an external that would be fine I guess but I do not know anything about them as far as what to buy and how to use them. I would like to just get the enternal one fix because I travel with my laptop alot and the external one would just be something else to carry around.

Found this:
http://www.mydvddrives.com/index.php?act=products&id=62566

I know nothing about the vendor. Just something I found doing a Google search for acer 8730 cd drive.