iMac 233mhz revB not booting

[MonkeyJamboree]

hello, i'm new here... i just recieved a Bondi Blue 233MHz Revision B iMac from someone my wife works with. Originally, it had OS 8.6 on it, but no install discs or anything... i borrowed some from a friend. anyway, i was able to get networking up and running, and decided to upgrade to OSX if possible, and OS 9.2.2 if not. Well, as always, i researched this before attempting anything, and i found out that i had to do updates before i could try to install OSX. i downloaded all three updates (firmware, cd-rom, and modem), and only needed to update the modem. the rest were up-to-date according to the software.
Anyway, after that, i figured i was safe, so i decided to do a clean boot on another hdd with osx or os9... i took apart the imac (being computer hw literate, i knew how), removed the old 4gb hdd, checked out my memory and video situation, etc... and replaced the old hdd with a 40GB that i planned to partition with osx's drive format thing (whatever it's called). after putting it together and trying to boot, it does nothing but spin up the cd drive (with whatever version of os i have in there), blinking a question mark followed by a mac icon. i tried holding down the C button to boot from cd, that didnt work. tried holding down command+option+p+r to reset PRAM, that didnt work. i even put back in the original hdd (that i had NOT touched since i took it out, before trying to install anything), and still no go. The only other computer i have is a P2-class celeron 433, and my friend's P2 400, so netbooting isn't an option (unless i'm just unaware of a way to do it. Can anyone help figure out how to get this thing booting?

[MonkeyJamboree]

by the way, forgot to mention, both drives were set to master, ram is at 64mb currently (enough to boot os9 i'd think), vram 6mb, i did have the mac working on my home network (though only to connect to the internet), and it's a revB G3 iMac (forgot to say G3 :P)... also, no cd's seem to want to boot at all to install.
Thanks Again...

[Giaguara]

Having 64 MB of RAM itself is already a reason why it will not boot to any OS X installation disc.

[MonkeyJamboree]

well yeah, that i realize, but the OS9 disc SHOULD still boot, as should the original HDD that was in there, as it was running fine before swapping out the hdd for another one.

[bobw]

Sounds like you may have a damaged or loose cable inside.

[MonkeyJamboree]

new update: the OS9 disc now tries to boot, but all i get is a plain grey screen when doing so. no flashing question mark (unless there's no disc in the drive or one that's not bootable)

[sinclair_tm]

did you make sure that the cable is surcurely atteched to both the drive, and the motherboard?

[MonkeyJamboree]

i did, but i'll re-check it, just in case...