Not sure about the whole sequence of events here, but at the top you mention connecting one or more of the optical drives to the SATA DOM port. That may have shorted out electronics in the drive or elsewhere on the system. I think the DOM ports are pinned differently than normal SATA and you may have sent 5V somewhere it shouldn’t have gone. Whether that can explain all three drive(s) and/or enclosure(s) permutations appearing to fail, I’m not sure. I’m not an EE, so my terminology may be off, but there may be a floating ground and plugging in the data cable closes the ground circuit and since there is so much current now flowing over that to ground when you turn the system on, the PSU’s overcurrent protection gets triggered. Just a thought.
I initially used only the regular SATA ports, but eventually did try the SATA DOM port. AFAICT from my limited knowledge of the SATA DOM port that should not (theoretically) damage something connected to it, but I could always be wrong.
In any event, with the optical drives not functioning in 2 different external cases and a new drive working in them, I can only conclude that somehow the 3 older drives are dead, which is too bad.
Your thought about that potentially triggering the PSU overcurrent protection is a good one, though I don’t see how that would happen when connected to the other regular SATA ports.
I’m old school enough I never hot swap anything (other than external USB drives), even when manuals say it’s supported. I don’t do it enough that I think it’s worth the risk.
Thank you for your thoughts though.
Kevin