First Boot Help

[Vizzin72]

I have picked parts for my new system based on recommendations earlier (see "Parts Suggestion Please" from this forum posted by myself earlier today Jan 29th) and am reading through the user manual for Asus p5K Premium/WiFi-AP.

The following link under the download tab of the stated mobo is where you can find the manual for download.

http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=534

As far as an initial boot, considering that I set up my parts without anything shorting;

Will I be able to simply access the BIOS and have the computer boot directly from an optical drive (not yet picked out) that has a Windows Vista (or XP) disk in it?

Or will I be able to skip entering into the BIOS during the POST altogether?

From what I am understanding, hoping that I am not being mislead by my own misinterpretation of the spec, having my ATA hard disk drive connected to the proper port or ports will allow the system to treat the Windows disk in the drive as being the only bootable media for it to recognize?

I would love for the thing to just autorun so I don't have to get tricky with no OS to fall back on.

I need an old fashion schoolin here guys so I don't let my novice ways drain my wallett.

Thanks

[shadowpr]

Personally, I would just go into bios and look around.

I would make sure both the cd drive and the hard driver were being recognized. Then set it to boot from the cd first.

Make sure you memory is recognized, and set the speed and timings and voltage if needed.

[alex530]

Good advice, can you explain specifically how to do that? Not to hijack your thread, but after saving and exiting from the BIOS, will the OS (Vista) boot up automatically and give you directions to follow, or will you have to format the harddrive first and then select where to install it?

[sgtspector]

If the optical and hard drives are recognized and the cd is set as the first boot device it should boot the OS cd and start the install. The install routine will partition and format the hard drive for you with the default settings or with your choices if you would like to change them. HTH

[Vizzin72]

ok good info....so now we understand....under normal circumstances the drive should be recognized and will boot the OS. Sounds fairly straight forward. However how can i be sure that the devices that i purchase will be recognized by the motherboard I am going with? Same thing with the graphics card that I choose. I was thinking about a GeForce (I think it is a 8800 someone recomended to me in another thread), but that's exactly what i'm worried about; picking things that will be supported so that I don't run into problems.

Thanks

[shadowpr]

If you list the parts, we can tell you if they would work together.

After that, for things like a video card and sound card you will have to install the drivers for them to work at optimum performance.