this is just a point, and i maybe pointing out something you know, sorry. But it's something i thought might be important.
I've noticed, i think.. that they run "ide as scsi" drivers for some devices maybe that is something that could be used to call your promise drivers? also i guess you've realized how diff versions of the knoppix kernel are compressed with diff versions of Cloop.. at least an older version I was trying to re-master had that problem, I had to de-compress it with older cloop's.