A quick stop over to the FAQ at minix3.org (
http://www.minix3.org/doc/faq.html) will yield the following answer:
My SATA drive doesn't work with MINIX
MINIX 3 does actually have SATA support, but we've seen problems if they're set to "Enhanced" (sometimes called "Native") mode. Try changing the setting to "Legacy" or "Combined" in BIOS.