Really bothersome. I have a homebuilt PC without a floppy (my mistake). The hard drives are SATA, which means that Windows XP can’t detect them (!).
Why, you ask, didn’t Windows think of putting generic SATA/RAID drivers on the CD? Why can’t you have the option to remove the install CD and install your HW drivers CD? That is stupidity on a massive scale.
Fortunately, someone has come up with a solution: making a better Windows Install CD
Here’s a more authorative version of how to slipstream your drivers into the Windows CD. On a positive note, looks like SATA support is now built into motherboard support, so hopefully this problem is short-lived.