Is the optical drive port on my logicboard dead?

Hi all,
I'm running OS X 10.8.5 on a MacBook Pro 15" early-2011 with 16GB 1333MHz DDR3 and 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7. Apple states it only supports up to 8GB but I've been running 16GB for a few years and it works much better!
Additionally I replaced the optical drive many years ago with an OptiBay and a 1TB SSD, and use the main hard drive bay for a 2TB SATA. I would swap them (since the main drive bay has faster speeds) but the 2TB SATA is too thick to fit into the place of the optical bay. This has been working great and every year or so I upgrade a drive. I've been using this configuration for probably a year now and one day the SATA (in the location of the optical bay) stopped working.
I connected the SATA via USB and it works, so it's not the SATA drive. I replaced the OptiBay (which converts the optical port cable to SATA) and that did not resolve it. I then replaced the actual cable as well, and still no go. I tried putting the SSD in the optical bay and no go. Obviously the only thing left is the physical port on the logic board.
Has anyone ran into this? Any thoughts on resolving or what the problem is? I'm very comfortable working with the laptop and have even did SMD (hot air reflowing) of the GPU in the past on this.
ps, One thing that has been strange in the past is that at one point, the same port would *not* work with some drives but would work with others. I replaced the cable that connects from the logic board to the optical drive (or optibay in my configuration) and this resolved it, but the oddity was that it was only certain drives.
Thanks!
-samy

Your HDD or the internal connection cable may have failed. If you have a HDD enclosure, take the internal HHD out and install it into the enclosure. Use the original install disk and see if you can install the OS. If not, the HDD is probably dead and will have to be replaced. If it will accept the OS, then the internal cable is faulty and will have to be replaced.
Ciao.

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