I have a MSI motherboard with a Maxtor SATA drive on it. Runs WinXP no probs. I installed the mb and the harddrive myself and I did have problems when I initially set it up. Firstly the mb has both Ultra ATA and Serial ATA and I had the drive plugged in wrong
As you get Win 98 working I guess that's not your problem. Secondly I received two driver floppies, one for SATA and the other for Raid stuff. The labelling on the two disks had me quiet confused for a while and the wording that popped up in the F6 bit in WinXP setup didn't help much either. I may have (was over a year ago now) got the blue screen of death a few times before getting the confusion sorted and selecting the right option. When you do the F6 part of the setup, what exactly are you selecting from the floppy?
Regards
Stoney