In an effort to not derail this thread
It might have some
amazingly retarded torx screws with a pin in the middle making it impossible to remove with a standard set unless you have a drill and want to potentially ruin the torx bit. Maybe you can buy them now. Otherwise swapping optical drives depends entirely on how much of the back panel you can remove or feel safe removing. On most laptops I have disassembled to remove dust, the optical is not immediately available to remove. I do know that Mac OS does not work with all hardware (CPU/Mobo specifically) so you need to research and see if optical drives are in the same boat. Not having an optical drive should have no effect on it if you can get an OS up and running.
http://www.hackintosh.com/#hackintosh_compatibleWith that said, I would hope they finally added USB booting but his mobo might not support it.