@incredible
I have done HW raid on x86 machine, its blade 6000 series. While the OS boots, i guess after bios in the black screen, you can see type ctrl+A to enter raid set-up. Hit that key combo and you enter a raid utility. Configuring is pretty simple from there. Make sure you have backed up all data, coz everything will be lost. As it was a new blade I had nothing to backup, please remember to back-up data. I did raid 1.
Once you are done with raid you can start the installation from the DVD, latest release is solaris 10 05/08, you probably know it..
, I downloaded the ISO and saved it to another solaris machine in same network and from the ilom of the new blade I mounted this iso image and started installation. It took about 20 minutes or so for the installation to complete.
I guess you would need drivers for the tape drive, not sure of that...
Hope this helps...