pleasedontfront

Thanks for the encouraging response, Eli. I've ordered a new cable and will report back whether or not it fixes the issue in a few days. Thanks! Update (1/10/13): So I replaced the cheap optibay I got off of ebay with a the pricier data doubler from OWC today. Now the hard drive in the optibay mounts, reads, and writes just fine. Seems like the original optibay was a dud. I've still got a connector cable on the way from ifixit.. I'll either return it or hold onto it just in case.. haven't decided yet. Has anyone had issues with the optibay SATA connectors failing over time? If so, I'll probably hold on to the one from ifixit. I already paid for express shipping on the thing... Oh well. Happy that everything is working (for now...) and that it wasn't a logic board issue like others have experienced.

I'm having the same problem. Mid-2009 MBP will not recognize the HD I added to the optical bay. The SuperDrive was not functioning (would not read/write) for some time before I decided to get rid of it and instal an optibay. I'm hoping it's a problem with the SATA connector cable or the optibay and not the logic board. The HD in the optibay works fine and the machine runs fine on its own. The only reason it might be the logic board is that I did have some water damage about a year ago and soon thereafter the SuperDrive started to fail. Could it be that the SuperDrive itself is fine and the logic board isn't communicating with it properly? I'm going to replace the SATA connector cable and try and different optibay. Hope that solves the issue...

It helps to remove the screws and gently move the right speaker slightly for getting the logic board out on step 54