Hard drive randomly parks head

[Prometheus12345]

current kit:
MB: as7V8X-X
Athlon 1300+ CPU (?)
256mb RAM
Western Digital Caviar HDD (3x) 40gb/20gb/4gb c/d/e respectively.

At any time, from during POST to hours after startup, drive 1 will randomly park and re-init for seemingly no reason at all. I have tried in vain to duplicate circumstances to no avail, and the drive, by every diagnostic means available, checks out fine, and doesn't seem to do it in another machine. On occasion, drive 1 and/or drive 3 will fail to detect in POST the first time, but will the second time. At times the drive will park just as windows starts, rendering the boot moot and I usually have to do a hard reset.

To post this, I have forced my way through looking for a possible answer before I start purchasing explosives that fit neatly in computer towers.

I have not had this problem ever before, until what was my drive 1 {C:} failed with a permanent busy read about 5 months ago, and only after at least a month after that...

As I type this, my drive just parked twice in a row, out of the blue.

I have checked IDE cables, reset CMOS, tried removing other drives (only resulted in it parking about every few seconds or so, again at random), checked power cables and connections, and not I nor anyone I know can make heads or tails of this. My power supply is in very good working order and replaced after the last one's fan failed and cooked it. At times it will take as long as 90 minutes to complete a boot, after which it is fine for at least a few weeks until this game resumes again.

Parking seems to go in pairs today....well, now parked 3 times in a row...

It seems that this MB gains infamy by the day, so any suggestions I can get would be helpful before my machine becomes good for nothing else than testing the parking sequence for my hard drive.

Edited to add: Just to add to the mystery of this problem, reinstalling my *display* drivers temporarily solves the problem! I even double-checked for a quantum singularity between my drives and my video card, but found none.

In the time it took to write this post, my drive has parked about 13 times and is really testing my nerve and patience.....plz help

[Prometheus12345]

Just a quick update; I am running a fully updated win98SE OS (praise the person who made this possible), as for whatever reasons I cannot run Xp on this machine. I am a cripple with no money, so ANY advice that might salvage my current hardware is helpful, even if it is just something you scribbled on a cocktail napkin.

And to answer in advance, I have run an antivirus to be sure, still to no avail. I am cramped for space, but I am still working to move this drive down in the hierarchy to put my OS on a lesser drive as it should be. This system worked until I lost my previous drive 1 and I was cornered into using an otherwise archive drive to run my OS. I fear I am losing integrity of my IDE controller, so I pray for good news.

Edited to add, I removed drive 2 {D} from the chain, and now I have lost detection of D/E/F (my cd drive) in POST.....I am gaining suspicion of my IDE controller by the moment, much to my immeasurable dismay, as I cannot even afford to replace my MB for a mere $30. Anyone know if a separate PCI card that can manage IDE devices when MB hardware fails? Better still if any techie can give me a component-fix for the MB IDE controller....I've seen it for ISA slots before, I can only hope for the best in my situation....

Correction: Other drives not visible in windows, yet drive configuration shows as a:/c:/g:/....go figure...

Again, ANY help is appreciated beyond words, so please suggest something I can do, no matter how silly it sounds. Knowing this system, the absurd is likely to be the solution, but this system is all I have.....I just hope I can retain an operational status long enough to read a reply....

I plea for any help on bended knee....