SATA hard drive disappears from system intermittently

My second hard drive (SATA) disappears from the system intermittently. I am running XP SP2. The event viewer confirms this stating Maxtor (id #) has disappered from the system. If I restart the system the drive will not reappear; I have to shut down and start the system. As I said it is completely intermittent NO ryhme or reason. I have replaced both cables, power and sata. My OS runs on the primary SATA and the 2nd SATA is the drive that disappears.

System specs
MB---ASUS P5KC
2 SATA hard drives Maxtor 80 GB
1 IDE drive WD 80GB

I had a similar fault that I resolved recently. My sata would drop out at the same time as my system would freeze. This happened when I inserted a dvd into the drive. I know it's not the same as your fault but maybe the remedy is.
I ended up reinstalling XP but the fault lay with my IDE drive. Try disconnecting that IDE drive and try it again. I ended up changing the IDE cable and swapping which controller it used. I am not 100% sure which part fixed my problem but all the hardware is back working but just in a different place. Let me know.