Driver disk questions

[Jay Cliburn]

I built my kids a new computer for gaming:  Asus M2V, AMD64x2, SATA HDD 
(only), et al.  I want to dual-boot XP and FC5.x86_64, but the SATA 
controller for this motherboard isn't yet supported by the Linux kernel. 
  I have a one-line patch that adds the correct device ID to the 
relevant kernel module, and I'd like to test it and submit it to 
kernel.org if only I can get FC5 installed to test it.  All I need to do 
is replace the FC5 install sata_via driver with my own modified sata_via 
driver.  I've been wrestling all day with getting a suitable driver disk 
(floppy) built, so far without success.  I have a few questions.

First, some background:
*  I'm doing the build work on an up-to-date rawhide x86_64 machine.
*  I've installed kernel-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.src.rpm in $HOME/rpmbuild.
*  I'm building the desired module against kernel 2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.

1.  The kernel module that needs to be modified is /scsi/sata_via.c. 
I've built the kernel (mostly; see #4) and thus have the .o and .ko 
objects for sata_via, but which one of those I should copy to the driver 
disk image, the .o or the .ko?  (I've tried both; neither worked, 
although I see the driver in the driver picklist during the install.)

2.  Is it okay to use the same driver name on the driver disk as the one 
I'm trying to replace in the install kernel?

3.  Is there some way to build a kernel rpm without having it "make 
clean" right up front?  If I encounter an error, I'd like the build to 
pick up where it left off (at the failed source file), but "make rpm" 
always wants to "make clean" and start all over.  I issue the make 
command from $HOME/rpmbuild/BUILD/kernel-2.6.15/linux-2.6.15.x86_64.

4.  Can you tell me why this error is occurring?  This is what happens 
every time at about the 40-minute mark of the build process.

   [...]
   INSTALL sound/usb/snd-usb-audio.ko
   INSTALL sound/usb/snd-usb-lib.ko
   INSTALL sound/usb/usx2y/snd-usb-usx2y.ko
if [ -r System.map -a -x /sbin/depmod ]; then /sbin/depmod -ae -F 
System.map -b /var/tmp/kernel-2.6.16rc6git3-root -r 2.6.15; fi
+ cp arch/x86_64/boot/bzImage 
/var/tmp/kernel-2.6.16rc6git3-root/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.16-rc6-git3
+ cp System.map 
/var/tmp/kernel-2.6.16rc6git3-root/boot/System.map-2.6.16-rc6-git3
+ cp .config /var/tmp/kernel-2.6.16rc6git3-root/boot/config-2.6.16-rc6-git3
+ /usr/lib/rpm/brp-compress
Processing files: kernel-2.6.16rc6git3-1
error: File not found: 
/var/tmp/kernel-2.6.16rc6git3-root/lib/modules/2.6.16-rc6-git3


RPM build errors:
     File not found: 
/var/tmp/kernel-2.6.16rc6git3-root/lib/modules/2.6.16-rc6-git3
make[1]: *** [rpm] Error 1
make: *** [rpm] Error 2


Thanks,
Jay