Hi,
I'm planning to load Mandrake Linux 10 on one of my rigs that has an Abit nf7 motherboard; I have 2 Raptors in RAID 1 on a HighPoint 404 controller with all my back up files.
3 questions:
#1. Will accessing the files on the RAID array be a problem?

#2. Willl drivers be an issue for the HP RAID controller?

#3. How in blazes does one load a driver in Mandrake?

Thanks in advance for any help offered.

I'm not sure about the RAID stuff, since I don't have or use one, but for the 3rd question, drivers come as kernel modules or compiled straight into the kernel. The latter usually isn't a good idea unless you're compiling drivers for your root FS or some other stuff that you don't feel like running in a module. As for NTFS readable, it depends. Mandrake 10 uses kernel 2.6, which has support for reading NTFS. There is also writing support for NTFS, but it is very limited. You can only overwrite files, not create or delete or rename them.

If you're looking for read/write support in NTFS, check out Captive NTFS. I've used it for some time now without problems but there are huge risks!