Need help getting a Promise Fasttrak RAID driver onto an as-yet-uninstalled SLES9 machine. Am running SusE 9.1 with 2.6 Kernel, P4P800-E mobo and two sATA 160Gb disks as RAID mirror.

On another LinuxQuestions forum, a user with a near-identical config to mine has explained where to get the driver (from Promise website); I've downloaded that driver in the form of a .tar.gz file.

He then went on to say something to the effect of "press F3 at the boot menu and the installation will ask you later on for the new driver". It's this last bit I need help with. Sorry for the really dumb questions, but its a long time since I've worked with a Unix-based OS (and even then it was IBM AIX):

- I have no other Linux systems in operation (only Windows) so I need to load the driver via floppy. What format does the floppy need to be in, and should it just be a 1.44Mb or capable of 2.0Mb ?

- What do I copy to the floppy -- the .tar.gz file, or do I uncompress it ? If I uncompress it in Windows via WinRAR, the resultant .tar file is slightly too big to copy to a 1.44Mb floppy

- Where in the installation is this mysterious F3 option that allows me to load my new driver from the floppy ?

As you can see, if someone could spell this out for me, it would be most appreciated !

The driver for that chipset- PDC20378- is in the kernel. You ain't gotta do jack. If it fails for some reason, you may want to install on one drive first, and then mirror the data over.

If you want to do RAID in linux on IDE/SATA, you should consider 3ware or LSI. Promise will make you want to shoot yourself in the face if it doesn't work off the bat.