Create a custom MySQL connection error

I answered a lot of my questions above, just to come up with more questions :-D hah

Heres the code thus far, (obviously in dev, hence all the die() statements)

PHP Code:

<?php
defined('BASEPATH') OR exit('No direct script access allowed');

class App_hooks
{
    public function pre_system_check_mysql()
    {
        require(APPPATH.'config/database.php');

        $creds = $db[$active_group];

        if( ! $conn = @mysqli_connect($creds['hostname'], $creds['username'], $creds['password']))
        {
            die('Cant connect');
        }

        if (mysqli_connect_errno())
        {
            die("Failed to connect to MySQL: " . mysqli_connect_error());
        }

        if( ! @mysqli_select_db($conn, $creds['database']))
        {
            die("Cant select DB ({$active_group})");
        }

        die('OK');
    }
} 


This works, but obviously it only works with the mysqli driver. This application will actually be distributed as Open Source, so its possible that whoever uses it, uses a different driver.

I know the DB_Driver library has methods to accommodate for this, but obviously it isn't loaded yet.

What would you recommend I do? Or do I really even have any other option? (Short of mimicking the db_connect and db_select methods in the DB_Driver manually)

Thanks!