My new Dell Latitude has a built in DVD drive. I want to take it on the boat, and use it at night and such. Do you think I will be safe just swapping to a different HD, (they come out with one screw) for the weekends? Will I eventually destroy the contacts on the Motherboard? We are only talking about 3 or 4 times a month here for the rest of the season, and no salt air in my area. I just do not want to risk damaging my importante 60Gig HD with all my business stuff on it.

Should I just invest in a portable DVD player (only)?

Why do you need to change the HD, I have the Sony and use it in my truck for trip's and stuff. I don't know about the Dell

Worried about corrosion?? Dont worry, unless water gets inside you should be fine, my dad did it many times, and I have taken one MP3 player with us a lot, there both still fine.

The only damage you should be worried about is shock from vibration, being jolted around, dropped or being thrown around in rough water. HD's don't like excessive G forces, extreme temperature changes, and static electricity. I'd say keep it in a good case in a secure location until ready for use that should keep it running fine.
It would be a good idea to back up you data. I've had HD's go up with no apparent reason at any time.

I repair them and there is a connector that is similar to a plug
they are gold plated , I dont think you will have a problem
I bring either my Vaio or my gateway laptop, when ever they are
on the boat I put them in a padded briefcase, if it's real humid
in the boat I zipp lock it this option is only availble with my
Vaio cause its very small.

just make sure you pad them well when under way, one good
wake could damage the backlight tube or screen.
the drives are very tuff when they are in the locked or
off position

No back up? You're asking for it anyway without taking it on the boat. If you dont have access to a LAN server where you can do a quick backup, buy a portable USB Jaz drive or something so you can do backups.

As far as the actual components go, I could care less. It is under warranty, and all the Dell crap breaks anyhow. (EVERY SINGLE COMPONENT of my Inspiron 3800 was replaced; a couple several times.) I just do not want to lose my data and programming.

have your IT guy, which would be me if I was closer , Mirror the drive with Drive Image then you will have a spare drive with everything as it is on the mirror date. Otherwise you can make a drive image and store it on a network drive and do updates weekly in case of drive death,. You can have the drive restored back to your backup date. With the new DVD recorders you can backup your system with only a few DVD's verses lots of cd's

I do a backup of changed files weekly to a network storage unit and monthly I do an image to another computer on the network.

My Inspiron 7500 is getting long in the tooth (1999) and I'll be getting it a new drive soon just for safety's sake.

I know that if the computer is powered down properly, the drive heads are "parked" where they can't hurt anything.

Like Brian says, a padded case and a powered down unit should be able to take normal boat pounding with ease.