SSD drive not recognized

[Robert Simmons]

I recently upgraded a hard drive to an SSD drive.  Initially I bought
a cheap(er) Microcenter house branded SATA II drive (after looking
around online it turns out it is really an A-Data that was rebranded).
 It was recognized by the BIOS, but not by FreeBSD.  I decided to
return it and try a name brand (OCZ Vertex 2, 60GB) with the same
results.  The system is 8.2-RELEASE and this is a fresh install.

The motherboard (ASRock K8Upgrade-NF3, nForce3 250 chipset) is only
SATA, not SATA II, but it has another SATA II drive (not SSD) that is
recognized just fine even without the jumper set to force it to SATA.
So, I don't think it is a problem with the drive negotiating down to
SATA, otherwise I don't think the BIOS would recognize it at all.

What is the best way to figure out why FreeBSD does not recognize the drive?