I just did this myself -- replacing the stock 8x with a 52x drive. The colored plastic pieces on the sides and front just snapped off with a little fingertip prying. The upper and lower halves of the plastic case are held together with three plastic pins on each side. I pried around the case slowly with a thin slotted screwdriver, being careful not to mar the plastic or snap the plastic pins. After about four pins were released the halves fell apart. Pay attention to the orientation of the old drive and how the circuit board in the back fits into the groove so you can put it back together correctly.
On a separate note, when I put the new drive in, put it all back together, and fired it up, it failed to be recognized by my desktop machine. I had to take the whole thing apart again to find out that I had forgotten to set the jumpers on the new drive to mirror the jumper setup on the stock unit. I couldn't tell you if the correct jumper setup was for master or slave, I just duplicated it and everything has been working perfectly since.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
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