bios not detecting hard drive

I am faced with this problem for abt 2-3 days.
The bios sometimes detects the hard disk (Maxtor 91360U34) and most of the times it just says
“primary master detected none”
And so it doesnt boot. I tried using the windows 2000 boot CD and stillits the same result.

Even when it boots up rarely when it detects the hard drive it seems like after abt 30-40 min hard drive suddenly goes silent(one can easily observe the reduction of noise) and i get the blue screen.

Hard drive – Maxtor 91360U34
Windows 2000 Professional
Amd k6 450

I am not sure what to do now.
Can someone tell me how to go about it ?
Thanks very much
Ravi