Setting up XP in AHCI mode can be infuriating

I typically install up to 11 OS' on the same drive in order of release from Microsoft, starting with XP and making my way up to Server 2008 R2. Most of the time for simplicities sake we have set up drives in IDE mode. Lately I've decided all the newer machines should be set up in AHCI mode and the systems that come with a SAS controller, we'll use that for setting up. So that we have systems set up in a variety of ways. 

I've set up several HP's [XW8600, Z800, XW9400] and a Lenovo D20 with minimal issues using a Iomega usb floppy on the SAS controller and/or just in AHCI mode.

Setting up XP in AHCI mode in some machines is like pulling teeth. I suppose if I had 50 systems of the same model to set up or even 10 for that matter, I might be motivated to slipstream the driver into XP. Though thinking about it now, slipstreaming at least the intel driver might help resolve a percentage of my problems. 

It was the Dell T7500 I'd asked one of my co workers to set up on the SAS controller using AHCI mode. After a week of arguing with XP and getting nowhere, I tried. I fought with it for some time. The blue screen error code basically said "Inacecesible boot device". Here we were thinking it was the drivers we were feeding it for both AHCI and SAS that were causing it. But in fact we later realized that it was our installing using a SATA optical drive. It was it that became inaccessible. Plugging a USB enclosure with an IDE CDrom proved to be the answer here.

With this knowledge I thought I'd have no problems setting up the new UEFI machine with intel mobo DX58SO. I've been arguing with it now for 3 days. I tried the the USB enclosure with IDE CDrom that worked so well for the Dell, but no such luck. XP installs fine in IDE mode and Windows 7 installs fine in AHCI mode.