Stupid Vista-Compliant Machines

I just bought a new laptop. Okay, technically, the laptop isn't mine, but my mother's, but that's beside the point right now.

So here I am, trying to install a perfectly working copy of XP onto a Vista-compliant machine. The guys at the store had the foresight to give me the drivers they said I'd need to make everything work if I install XP, since Vista drivers were not going to be a problem for me - or so they claimed, at least. However, early on in the installation, I hit a minor snag - the installation doesn't recognize the hard drives.

I do a bit of digging and I find that I've got a SATA HD on my hands, which XP doesn't have drivers for. I do a bit more digging and realize that I come to three options. First, I tamper with the compatibility settings on the BIOS so I can install XP without a problem. This is, by far, the easiest of the lot, but also the one that I'm the least sure of. I'm not sure if I can do that on the BIOS of the laptop. Second, I can slip-stream the whole thing with the appropriate drivers, but that also presents a minor problem: I can't find the drivers, and I can't get the ones I got from the manufacturer to work. Third is the option I want to deal with the least and that I'd rather die than truly consider: install Vista.

I intend to spend a few hours on the new machine (which I have named Mei) later on, to see if I can get any of the above methods to work. Installing Vista is an option, but only if I deem it absolutely necessary to do so. That's only going to happen if I exhaust the first two options, but I doubt that's going to happen soon. I've managed to grab some stuff that might be of help in my quest to making sure XP gets on that laptop, even if it kills me.