What is the laptop model?
Is there a BIOS setup to identify the 2nd port as IDE\SATA?
Have you tried single booting with SSD in the caddy?

Hotswap is a bad idea, if the ports does not support it. Even if it does, you need to unmount the drive first.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-...14x-w-pics.html

The above guide shows it being easy but it mentions something about not damaging the sata connection strip. When you plug back the optical drive, was it able to read optical media properly? Else Maybe a faulty caddy.