iBook won't boot

Hello All,

I've got a finiky iBook 500 here, apparently. The CD-ROM in this beast is dead, so I'm trying to boot off of a USB External CD-RW drive that I have. The internal CD-ROM tries to constantly eject the CD whenever there is a disc in the drive, but when there's not disc in the drive it stays shut (is this a common problem?)

The second half of my problem is this. I cannot get the iBook to load the OS Installer. I'm trying to install either 10.2.4 or 10.3 and I get the startup/spinning 'wait' symbol at the bottom and the apple symbol on top... then after a minute or so, I get the "stop"/slash sign, but the spinning circle at the bottom still spins.

This happens both with 10.3 and 10.2 installation CDs. It doesn't give me any errors or anything else. Any ideas on how to get this computer at least temporarily booted. I don't have the hardware check CD (which I thought I did) so, I'm kinda stuck right now.

Any/All suggestions would be great.

Thanks in advance - I'm a relative newbie to mac troubleshooting.

does this ibook have firewire ports? in order to boot from an external cd rom or drive, it has to be firewire, USB is too slow, so it won't boot. the cd drive trying to eject is not a good sign, sounds like a possible hardware issue. do you have the apple hardware test disc that came with the ibook? if you do, try to get a hold of a firewire external drive, most likely a dvd rom or dvd-r drive, maybe borrow one from a friend if possible.
BTW, what OS is installed currently?

i used the firewire cable for my external drive (instead of the usb cable) and it works like a champ! I can't believe that is the problem.... I was almost certain I've booted from the USB cable'd external drive before...

Installation is now starting, I'll let you know how it progresses!

Best Regards and Many Thanks,
Matthew