PowerMac G5 won't detect hard drives

This is an intermittent problem. I have a dual processor PowerMacG5 2GHz.
The computer won't boot up. Used disc utility to find out that no hard drive was detected. Thought hard drive was bad. Installed new hard drive. Installed Tiger. Rebooted. Computer won't boot, disc utility shows no hard drive.
Unplugged computer. Removed hard drive. Started disc utility from disk. Turned off machine. Unplugged. Installed hard drive.
Started up machine. Machine runs fine.
Now turned machine off and tried to restart again, now no hard drive detected again.
Redid unplugging and reinstallation of hard drives.
Now both hard drives works fine.
This problem can be repeated. I prefer not to ever turn off my machine again. Startup procedure with unplugging, reinstallation of hard drives is just a pain.
Anybody having a clue of what hard ware piece should be replaced?
Thank You

My original drive is a 160 GB Maxtor. This is the drive the machine couldn't start up with. The machine started  with its sound, then the display just showed the ticking start up image. After a while the fans started to run very fast and then the machine shut down.
My new drive is a seagate BarracudaGreen 2TB. Both drives are SATA.
I have installed Tiger on the Seagate and is using the new drive as a start up drive.
I have seen the same identical problem with all different configurations. New or old drive, 1 or two drives don't seem to make a difference.
The machine runs great if it does start up.
Have any one of you guys seen if the problem goes away if I use an external firewire connected drive as a startup drive? I like this Mac machine and the programs I have on it and would like to be able to use it for a few more years.

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