If you're preparing to re-install Win XP using a floppy drive for drivers, that process is relatively simple. It uses a facility built into Windows Install routines for many past versions - I suspect it first was introduced to allow for SCSI adapters and drives, but it's quite generalized. VERY early in the Install routine you boot from your optical drive, it asks whether you want to install any extra drivers for devices; if you do, you must press the "F6" key. If you fail to press that, it will wait and then time out and proceed. But if you press F6 it enters a sequence that instructs you to inert the diskette containing the requisite driver in the floppy drive and it will load that driver from there. (As you have realized, it only accepts drivers from this device.) It then comes back to the same place to let you add more drivers if necessary. When you have no more you tell it to go on.
To use this, read up the details in your mobo's manual. Usually it will give you good instructions on where the drivers are found, which ones you will need for which situations, and how to load them onto a floppy diskette in preparation.
What Windows Install does is load them into itself in RAM so that it does have access to the hardware device for the full Install process, and later ensures that they are on the boot device (hard drive) AND are noted properly in the Windows startup files no they will be loaded at the very beginning of all future boot-ups. In essence, it makes those drivers a part of Windows itself, but only for this instance of it on this machine. Of course, once that driver (for example, for a AHCI device) is loaded, it works for ALL such devices, not just the boot device.
I am still concerned, though, that you say your machine cannot see all six SATA devices in the BIOS. That has absolutely nothing to do with Windows and its drivers. Adding the right Windows drivers will NOT make available a device that the BIOS cannot see.
AHCI does not pertain to any IDE device - it is a part of the SATA specification system. So having or not having IDE devices, or an Enabled IDE port, should not affect AHCI devices at all. Well, EXCEPT that on some motherboards the BIOS and chipset was set up so that some of the ports were kind of either - or without overlap. That is, you could have two IDE ports, OR you could have two extra SATA ports, but not both. And the AHCI thing is available only on the SATA ports.
It certainly is true that some motherboards provided RAID only from ports operated by a particular chip (either the main southbridge, or a different chip), and not on all ports. So I would not be surprised to learn that your mobo only allows RAID on a group of four ports run by one particular chip.
Now, the link between RAID and AHCI is more confusing. They are completely separate things. However, some mobo makers linked them in such a way that to get AHCI device operating mode, you actually had to set the mobo options to use a RAID mode on the SATA ports, and then load a driver (sometimes even one unified driver) that provided both functions, even though the do not need to be linked. Others kept the two functions separate. For example, on a machine used in my family's retail store with a RAID1 array, I had to load (as part of the Win XP Install) TWO drivers - one for AHCI port mode, and one for RAID use of the drives. But even if you find yourself pushed into setting RAID as an option and loading a unified driver, I have never seen a system that then forces you to use a RAID array. They all simply make RAID a possibility and default to NO RAID use; you have to deliberately use built-in tools to create a RAID system if you want it.
I urge you to pursue the matter of ensuring ALL of your HDD units are visible in the BIOS. Maybe (I can't look at your mobo manual) the group of ports managed by a separate chip is actually configured in BIOS Setup in a different screen, and not in the same place as your first few ports. Keep looking for some way to see them all. One other clue to seek: as the machine boots up and shows you all the on-screen messages from the POST sequence, there are usually notes about each hard drive device it finds connected to ports. If those flying messages show you five HDD's and one optical unit, then the BIOS IS seeing them somewhere.
Slipstreaming is a very useful technique for some situations. You are right to say it seems a bit complicated, but you can learn and do it - I did. For your simple need, which is to load drivers for AHCI or RAID devices during the Install, using Slipstreaming to avoid the necessity of floppy drive use does seem excessive. However, there is one place where the technique is almost necessary - I doubt this is your case. IF you have only the very first version of Win XP on your Install Disk with no subsequent Service Packs included, you are missing a really important feature - the ability to use hard drives over 137 GB (by the HDD maker's way of counting). There are ways to live with that, but they are not as good as the right way. The "right way" is to use an Install disk that DOES have a more modern version with at least Service Pack 1 included. If you don't already have that, one way to get it for free is to update your old-style Install disk by slipstreaming so that you have a more recent version of XP to work with. As I said, I expect this is NOT your situation.
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