Greetings academic,

Would a floppy boot be acceptable to your use?
The floppy boot image is included on the KNOPPIX CD.
"Cheat codes" can be put in to modify the file syslinux.cfg

A more elegent solution may be to boot from usb if your
bios supports this. Just a thought -- actually I have never
done that.

As far as Raid -- I have little knowledge.

Best Wishes
paradocs