Media Center 2005 First Build

[cutthroat]

Media Center Build
Jumped in with both feet as this is my first build, Ihave been researching this for about a year and would like some advice from guru's if you would be so kind.

Asus p5wd2-e
975x chipset
Maxtor Dmax 10 ncq 250G (SATA II 16MB)
Pent 4 6xx, 3.0Ghz
ASUS EAX1800XL
Balistix DDR2 667 low latency
ATI Theater 550pro tv tuner (Plan to install after the OS instal, any MCE guys see a problem with that?)
P180 Case
Antec True Power II 550W
MS MCE 2005

Everything is installed did a test start up, nothing happend, green light on MB that was it, oh yeah, nice case but speaker please, so I panicked smoked some smokes read some posts and went to bed. Looked at her this AM and found the case switch was off by a pin...whew

Started right up after that, peeked around the bios a bit and shut her down. :-)~.

This is where I need some help.

I want this system to be "RAID Ready", as described in INTEL's docs
http://support.intel.com/support/chi.../CS-020659.htm
http://support.intel.com/support/chi.../CS-020670.htm

So that I can migrate to RAID later w/o reformat and install.

I have set SATA as [AHCI] in Bios,
I can not find a way to [Enable] Intel's Matrix Storage Manager (MSM) w/in the Bios
However ASUS manual says that during POST hit 'ctrl l' to enter 'Intel Matrix Storage Manager option ROM'
Intel's docs say that once MSM is [Enabled] you will be able to 'ctrl l' at post and enter option ROM to set up your Raid.

Does this mean that ASUS has MSM enabled by default and is not a bios option? or should i keep looking.

Assuming so, my next step would be to insert Window CD and instal, F6 the drivers and install extra Sata drives when ready.

Make since to anyone, has anyone played with this yet?

Also thoughts on my boot set up:

Primary IDE Master lists my ASUS DRW-1608P2S (DVD Drive)
Primary IDE Slave not detected
Third IDE Master my Maxtor SATAII HDD

1st boot floppy
2nd boot hdd
3rd boot dvd-rom

Does all of this sound right to instal my OS on SATA w/o any problems

Thanks in advanced for comments or suggestions if anyone chimes in or interested I'll keep the string updated with succes and failures.

Thanks

[glc]

The DVD drive has to be before the hard drive in the boot order. You may need a floppy drive and drivers to install SATA drivers at the beginning of setup by pressing F6.