Getting 1950 to *see* megaraid PERC5/i driver?

[Mitch Kutzko]

Hi -- I just received four Dell 1950s that need to ship to a client 
site Monday morning, and discovered that our normally rock-solid 
kickstart file doesn't install because it can't see the hard drives 
on any of the 1950s.

After talking with Tech Support, it became apparent that the problem 
was that I didn't have the megaraid PERC5/i drivers for RH 3 
(upgrading soon, I know, I know), which was causing the problem with 
not being able to see the drives.

I now *have* the driver, but can't figure out how to get the 1950's 
boot process to *see* it!

Back in the day, I'd put the driver on a floppy and boot with "linux 
dd......", and all would be fine.  However, 1950 has no 
floppy.  Ok.  So use USB key and "Virtual Floppy Drive" setting in 
BIOS, right?  No joy.  Doesn't see it.  Keeps looking at device ID 3, 
regardless of actual device ID assigned to USB key.

So burn driver to CD and swap during "linux dd....." boot, right?  No 
joy.  Says there's no CD in the drive.  (I beg to differ.)

Have banged my head against this wall for last 48 hours, and am 
stuck.  If I could just get the driver loaded, our install package 
could see the hard drives, and I'd be fine.

At this point, I can't imagine that everyone else that wants to 
install their own OS isn't having the same trouble (and I find many 
mentions of this same trouble with Google), but I find no *solutions*.

Can I please buy a vowel?

Thanks,

Mitch