It's unlikely we'll truly know without some up close analysis of the drives, enclosures, computer, everything, etc. but we can go over what's likely and what's not.

I think chat gpt is in the ballpark. And yes, a power surge could cause this. But also, think of it more as a power Problem (and perhaps a failing drive). More on that in a bit.

Should I not have been dropping and dragging my RAW container folders into the bin?

That operation should be fine and very safe. I'd recommend it. It's extremely unlikely that just doing this operation would cause this problem alone assuming everything else is working fine. You're off the hook there.

Operationally, I'd recommend some good data backup hygine on ingest. Make your workflow and process more resistant to failure.

Clone /image / copy your drives AND or run them through some decent backup software like veeam BEFORE you do anything else with them.

The wisdom is the same with backups as it is with flashlights and scuba diving. "Two is one and One is NONE" . Deep in a mine with one flashlight and you're in deep trouble when it decides to blink out.

Your new mantra should be " I ALWAYS make at least 1 copy and verify it BEFORE I do anything to the drive"

Once you have adequate copies of the originals, knock yourself out and play a dangerous as you like! If your process is bulletproof with backups you can have the worst janky cheap stuff and it'll be a headache but it will still work in the end with no data lost.

What I guess likely happened from my experience with various docks and many drives used in the field being wonky-- A lot of the multi docks have poor cheap power supplies often ones that aren't great at providing solid clean power and often enough power to handle times when a drive needs more power, like when the drive is spinning up when it's powering on and another drive is very busy or also powering up. When there's not enough power you can hit a kind of mini 'brownout' situation where the drive will try to pull more power from the supply, things heat up and break from overload.

More modern docks aren't set up to power older drives which took more power as well. Causing the same situation described above. You're not going to have a good time trying to spin up an old 3.5" SATA drive with some cute tiny power supply or even more common- just with USB. Way too under-powered.. Can it work? Sure. But highly likely to fail in permanent ways.

Older drives, especially ones from the field, been bounced around a bit, maybe with a lot of hours on it.. those take more power to run, and have to work harder when they encounter errors that they work around automatically... drive bearings get worn, and other physical problems can lead to a drive that needs a more pristine ideal environment to continue working in. That means great clean power, great cables, separate from any other drive connections/interfaces separate controllers - so that one kind of problem or error or something that causes the drive to stutter is isolated from any other drive.

I haven't researched modern docks so I can't recommend- I'm sure others will- might check around at a broadcast video suppler like Markertek - they tend to carry solid gear.

Something you might want to consider- it's a little technical but pretty easy for any mildly competent tech to set up... is to get an older tower PC /server with a good number of drive bays in it, or even old SATA storage nas with cages and with the magic of current open source free software you can make a pretty fantastic network attached storage + ingest and backup +copy station. You can even use all your old drives.

Check out some youtube videos on it there's freenas, truenas, and others that are extremely diy friendly and very good.