This MAY relate to which OS you are trying to install.
Win XP in all its versions does NOT know how to use SATA (more properly, AHCI) devices without a driver. This was fixed in Vista and Win 7, so my comment here does NOT relate to those 2 more recent OS's. But IF you are installing XP or some earlier Windows OS, read on.
There are two ways to solve this dilemma. The easy way is to use a work-around that almost all BIOS designers have built into their BIOS code for exactly this problem. But using it does mean that you actually do NOT get to use a few of the new features of AHCI devices like hot swapping and NCQ. If that's OK with you, here is how to proceed. Put your Win XP Install disk in the Optical drive as you would for the normal Install procedure. Boot and go immediately into BIOS Setup to set three things. (A) Make sure the SATA ports are Enabled. (B) Near there, look for a line to set SATA Port Mode, with options like IDE (or PATA) Emulation, SATA, AHCI, or RAID. Set to IDE (or PATA) Emulation. This has the BIOS intervene and make the actual SATA HDD appear to Windows to be a plain IDE drive type it fully understands, and the process works without any need for additional driver installation. (C) Go to where you set the Boot Priority Sequence. Most people set it to Optical drive first, SATA unit second (specifically the one to which you plan to install the OS, if you have more than one SATA HDD), and no other boot devices allowed. Save and Exit, and the machine will reboot from the optical drive and start the Install. It should now be able to find that HDD because it is looking for an IDE device, and the BIOS is making your SATA HDD appear to be just that.
On the other hand, if you do wish to take advantage of all that SATA (AHCI) devices have to offer, you must install a driver for that device type as an early part of the XP Install process. To do this you need (at least temporarily) a floppy drive installed on your system because the Install routine only will load external drivers from that device. Plus, of course, you need to have prepared a floppy disk with the AHCI (or SATA) driver for your mobo on it, and you put this into that drive before starting the Install. You still need to ensure that the SATA port is Enabled and the Boot Sequence is optical followed by HDD. BUT for the SATA Port Mode, set it this time to AHCI (or SATA, if necessary). Now you boot into the XP Install process and watch very early for a prompt to press the F6 key to install extra drivers from floppy. Do that and follow the prompts. It will come back to the starting prompt to allow you to install more drivers in case you need to. When done, just tell it so. What this does is place that driver in a special place on the HDD so that the earliest part of Win XP can load it in and use it to access the ACHI device for all further work. It's as if the AHCI driver has become part of the small group of "built-in" drivers for this installation of Win XP - it has been customized. When you have told it you are finished adding that driver(s), Win XP Install will be able to find and use the AHCI device (SATA HDD) for the Install Process, and it will always work thereafter. This slightly more complicated process is the "right" way to do it, and it uses a tool that has been part of Windows Install for some time. In earlier (and current) cases it is also used to add drivers for SCSI or RAID systems so Windows can install to them and boot from such a drive system.