what kind of length can u get out of sata cables ;) maybe even u could hack a repeater ala usb style.
but in other news and why i came here was to recomend file copying alternatives to windows explorer as it really really sucks ass in XP,
Teracopy is ausome, u can pause it, resume it, queue ,it adjust buffers , see data rate, trottle it, shell integrate it...
http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php