power mac g4 hard drive problems! help!

i recently inherited a g4 power mac but have found that the hard drive is blown; when i switch it on i hear a clicking sound and a flashing folder/question mark icon appears.

i have since tried to use an iomega 250gb external hard drive to install panther OS X 10.3, but am repeatedly told (despite numerous reboots) "You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. You cannot start your computer from this volume."

the log states that it's "not bootable because it has no open firmware path".

is there any way to fix this? or do i have another problem other than the hard drive?

if not, could anyone recommend an external hard drive that i could connect to the computer and use as my hard drive without any problems?

thanks in advance for any replies

in case it helps, here are the specs for the computer;

powermac g4, digital audio. the processor is a 466 and the ram memory is 380

is that drive connected by usb or firewire

usb. i'm not actually certain whether the digital audio has a usb 2.0 hub or if it's a 1.1. do you think i should try an external hard drive with a firewire connection? the computer does have a firewire port.

thanks

Its USB 1, and will not be bootable on a PPC mac

If you have a firewire drive, that interface will boot and quite a lot faster than USB 1