Hello Dougzwicker,
Relax please.
The answer actually has been given already, the answer is "No it can not be done at this time as there is no specific driver available for the VMware Sata device".
A little bit more background info. If you look at the device strings for the sata controller in Windows XP after adding a SATA disk, you'll notice that it starts with a VMware specific vendor ID and there's no existing hardware driver released out there that you can use. At least not in the public and not without hacking an existing hardware driver to match up with that device ID. I have no idea if the VMware Sata driver even has any resemblance to an existing hardware driver, so the "hacking an existing driver" is likely to not ever work either.
The person who kindly asked you why you want this feature is a VMware employee (You can see that on the little "vm" icon by his name)
The reason he is asking you is to give him a specific usage scenario on adding to their internal systems on having motivations for developing a driver for Windows XP. Personally I think that is a completely valid question.
For clarity, you probably know this, but as you mention "continued support of XP is important for me".
There is nothing stopping you from using Windows XP, it is supported using virtual IDE and virtual SCSI disks. It does not matter if your host has SATA support only as in a VM the host disk system is completely isolated from the guest VM.
Hope this helps,
--
Wil