Now what?

[Musashi]

I just bought:
KT7A-RAID motherboard,
AMD Duron 800,
GlobalWin FOP38 hsf,
256Mb PC133
From my old computer I get:
8Gb HDD,
Voodoo3 200 PCI,
Acer 8x4x32 CDRW.
I haven't built it yet, because I'm scared ****less of breaking it.
The supplier says the chip is guaranteed to run at 1GHz, and it came with the L1 bridges connected, but there is no documentation at all. All I have is the motherboard manual and drivers on a disk and floppy. I've read the manual, but I'm having a hard time with most of it. I'm sure I can put everything together, but I'd like to know this:
Does the board automatically recognize the chip? or do I need to setup the whole BIOS myself? what settings should I use?
And about the harddisk, I read something about having to do a low level format, what is that exactly? Can't I just format and FDISK from a boot floppy?

I feel a bit like I've jumped in the deep end before realizing I can't swim.

[Azazel]

since no one else has decided to help you out i will take you under my wing... i aint the greatest in the world but you wont fry your **** if you follow my lead.
first off the reason that there is no documentation with your chip is that you bought an OEM chip. all you get is the chip itself...NOTHING ELSE!!!
onto question number 2... the mobo will recognise the chip... but you have to set the jumpersettings on the mobo FIRST. if you dont set them right your chip wont post at the desired speed. dont get ahead of yourself and overclock it right off of the bat. get everything up and running before you go mess somethng up. make sure your temps are good so that you dont fry your new toys.
you DONT need to do a low level format... there is NO reason to. actually unless you want to you dont even have to format your HDD. but to answer your question completely, a low lwvel format is a format where the tracks sectors...etc are lait out on a HDD. this is usually only done at the manufacturer. well i think that should answer your questions... email me @ hated_azazel@yahoo.com if you have any more quesations... i love to help