x51 - Challenge: Get Windows XP working in dual or single boot configuration. Reward offered!

I purchased a couple of x51 's because of the form factor and figured that I should be able to downgrade the OS myself (yes. I know that it is not officially supported) since all of the components have xp or xp64 drivers in existence.

First I tried simply inserting my XP install disc - the install feature was greyed out. I assumed that this is because it was not meant to be able to run from a Win7 environment.

Fine, I figured I would boot from the disc and run it that way. I shrunk my main partition in half and created a new partition as NTFS to install XP into. Then I put the disc in, rebooted and pressed f12 to enter the boot menu. No go - my dvd drive was not listed as an option. Next i rebooted and went into bios where I switched from UEFI to legacy boot mode. save, then reboot and the dvd drive shows up in the menu. It boots from the CD! the installer is running and shortly after it loads all the drivers - Blue sceen of death :(

Ok, I says - maybe it is an issue with running from CD - Next i use  WintoFlash to make a bootable USB drive out of my install disc. Then I reboot again and the USB key wont be recognized in UEFI mode - so I switch to Legacy again in the BIOS and it boots! it gets past loading the drivers - but when it gets to the XP installer section where I get to choose which drive to install to - it only lists my USB drive that I booted from. It does not even recognize my internal hard drive. 

So after many hours of research i discover that the SATA drive in the x51 can only run in AHCI mode - not IDE mode. The original XP installer does not include SATA drivers so that is why it wont install. But you can slipstream SATA drivers into the installer using nLite and get it to work. So that is what I do next, using the Intel Series 6 SATA drivers for the x51 chipset. 

Boot again from the USB key - viola it shows up the 1TB drive - but it wont let me install directly to it - probably because it is in GPT mode and not MBR mode. I figure, in for a penny in for a pound ( i really only need this unit to run XP) and I delete the main partition and reformat it as NTFS and then I run the installer.

I am convinced that I am in like flynn - but upon the firt reboot of the install i get the following message:

"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot disk and path hardware. Please check the windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information."

Ack! I know I can use my restore disc to get the machine back and running with Win7 (minus the special recovery partition - oh well) so i am not too worried. but if I cant get XP running on this machine I will have to return it. 

I am quite frustrated now. I know I can run XP in VirtualBox - but the USB peripherals I have to use for my work do not play well with virtualization so that is not an option - I have to run in genuine hardware mode. I would have gone with a Mac Mini in Bootcamp, but I require a 3 monitor setup and the x51 is the smallest and quietest machine i could find to fit those criteria.

So here is the challenge:

The first person who can give me successful step by step instructions on how to get XP up and running on a x51 i will pay $50 bucks to by paypal.

 I know with all the expertise out there it we can make it happen!