radical: Before I bought this WD750 (supports NCQ), I had 2 Maxtors (no NCQ). Without AHCI/RAID enabled (AHCI/RAID controler set in bios like standard IDE) the drives were detected quick enough. When I enabled AHCI/RAID, the drives were very slow detected, and ... didn't wanted to boot from them (it seems like your have the same problem).

Besides, the BIOS setup is screwed on the board too! I tried to go to it and it just kept scrolling numbers/letters, like someone was leaning on the keyboard (and they weren't).
Well that can be a mobo problem, but also it can be a memory compatibility problem, or even a memory problem. This mobo is a little freaky with memoryes ...