Some questions re: building my first computer

[soarwitheagles]

Hi everyone! How are you?

It is my first time here and was just hoping someone could give me some clues in regards to building my first computer......

I seem to be a little confused as to how to set the jumpers on the harddrive and the DVD Burner...

Here is what I am trying to put together...

ECS Mother board P4M800PRO-M v.2 + Intel 805D chip [came as a package deal from fry's for only $78]

Ultra Microfly Clear case

Ultra 500 watt power supply

Maxtor Harddrive 120 GB Ultra ATA

Maxtor Harddrive 200 GB SATA

Pioneer DVR-710

e-GeForce 6200 LE

4 Port IEEE 1394 PCI card by PPA

2-512MB sticks of PQI DDR memory

I am not sure if anyone can help me...

Here are my questions...

1. What is the best way to hook up my drives? [I thought about using the 120GB ATA as the boot drive. There is a primary and secondary IDE slot on the mother board but I am not sure how to set the hardrive and the Pioneer DVD up. Example: do I set both as cable select? Or is the hardrive to be the master and the DVD burner as slave? Would it be best to set one drive in primary IDE slot and the other in the secondary IDE or run both on the same cable? Etc.

2. Must I plug in a 12 volt plug into the IEEE PCI Card? If yes, will these extra plugs from my power supply work? [I see a four pin plug on the PCI card], Will the card work without power? The diagram of it can be found here:

http://www.ppa-usa.com/DOWNLOAD/1202-PinDiagram.pdf

3. Should I install all hardware and then boot the system or should I install certain items in a sequential order?

4. Which harddrive would be best to use for the Operating system [I plan on using XP PRO but the disk has no service packs]. I am not sure if the 200GB SATA or the 120GB Ultra ATA would work best. Someone told me they are almost the same. [both are 8MB cache].

5. How can I be sure I hooked up the correct wires from the front of the computer case to the correct pins on the mother board [some of it was not so clear], and am I at risk of frying something or making loud sounds and smoke at the first boot up?

6. I only found one pin on the MOBO for the system cooling fan but the case has a front and a rear cooling fan...how can I make both of them work? What is best, a "Y" with a sensor or an adaptor for an extra molex connector.

7. Am I over my head in my attempt to put together a new computer system? Someone told me it is quite easy and I should have no problems...

Ok, I hope I did not over do it on my first post.

Hope someone can help me.

Take care everyone!

It's me,

Fred

handiconstruction@yahoo.com

 

[Ellothar121]

Clicky 1

Clicky 2

I'm not sure if those will answer your questions, but they were useful for me.

 

[Norcent]

put both at master. Thats what i did for all 3 computers i have and they all work great. I am talking about the jumpers if you don't understand.

 

[ElBurro]

Do not put the HD and the DVD drive on the same IDE cable. The reason the speed of the coming off the cable will be set to whichever is the slowest device in the chain. The DVD drive is much, much slower than your HD. If you put them on the same chain you will have a really slow HD. Although I must admit I am confused why you are using any PATA HDs you should use all SATA. You already have a SATA HD why not make them both the same. I would definitly reccomend using the PATA connectors for the optical drives and that's it.