17" PBG4 no longer sees DVD after SSD swap

I obtained a very nice 17" DLSD PBG4 (A1139) a couple weeks ago. I performed an HDD to SSD swap by using a 250 GB mSATA drive with IDE adapter to replace the spinner, and as is my usual, created two partitions, one for Leopard and one for Tiger/Classic. Works great, throughput has gone from about 35 MB/sec to about 83 MB/sec. It is a much more pleasant user experience.

But something strange happened in the swap -- the SuperDrive is no longer recognized. It IS getting power -- when you put a CD in there it spins up but does nothing, and certainly won't mount -- but the computer can not recognize the drive and apparently can not communicate with it. It was working before the swap.

I've double checked and triple checked all the connections from ribbon cables to the board; they all look well connected and solid, and none seem bent, torn, cut or frayed. But System Profiler says "no burning device" was found. I've put in a different, known-good compatible DVD drive and it has the same issue.

So this is a shot in the dark: Has anyone seen anything like this in a PBG4, particularly a 17" model? I don't see how a simple swap from HDD to SSD could disable the DVD, so I haven't tried it swapping it out again. In any event, I use the CD/DVD so rarely now that I'd sooner leave the SSD in there anyway. But has anyone encountered anything like this?