runningwithscissorsstudios

Okay, forgive me if I am misunderstanding you here, but isn't it a driver issue that is stopping XP from installing on your SATA drive? First of all, have you slipstreamed your xp disk to include SATA drivers for your mobo, or do you have a floppy disk with your SATA drivers on it so you can let XP utilize your SATA drive? Your BIOS may recognize your SATA drive, but XP doesn't necessarily have the ability to install onto a disk it doesn't have the drivers for the controller for.....this is why you press F6 during XP installation to install SATA drivers at the early stages of XP installation. You can also slipstream your SATA drivers onto the XP disk so you don't need a floppy to do this, but this is a bit more advanced, it is easier to just get a floppy drive. I know that's a dumb idea, floppy drives are a thing of the past, but that's how microsoft wants you to do it with XP. You should be able to specify to install onto your SATA drive AFTER XP has the drivers for your SATA disk. As for making your SATA disk drive C, can't you just edit your boot.ini file? If all else fails, just remove your IDE drive and install with only your SATA drive present. That HAS to work. Good luck!