I have heard (never actually tried, or had the problem) that sometimes Windows has trouble with SATA, especially when it is being installed for the first time with a new hardware configuration. The trick is to select IDE (PATA) in the system BIOS before attempting to install, making the system believe it is installing onto a PATA drive instead of a SATA drive. After windows is installed, Windows will normally find the correct drivers on its own, and you can switch over to SATA mode again.