I had checked AHCI before going for RAID because I too did not want to use RAID for a single drive. During installation of Windows, I also provided the latest AHCI driver download from the support site. But the problem was same. Secondly, the time which the installation normally takes is not while "Copying Files" but during "Expanding Files". If it matters, I would like you to also know that my installation media is a usb flash drive (prepared to boot with EFI) since the DVD is not EFI-bootable.
Finally, i tried the Live Chat for Customer Support but it everytime says "Sorry, all of our Chat Agents are currently unavailable."