Blue screen with cursor at boot. And everything after that.

Dear Forums,
(Please note, I'll refer to the machine as a Server, but it is only using 10.4 client; I am merely using the Sharing capabilities of such).
I have a MDD G4 that I'm using as a server. When I start it up, I get the Blue Screen with Cursor (BSwC) at boot - and it never goes past that. (Can't move the cursor either).
I have read the articles
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464
And Dr. Smoke's
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/startupitems.html
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/repairprocess.html
I've also tried AppleJack and clearing out caches, zapping PRAM, etc. All the standard fare.
It will boot into safe mode just fine, and it is still acting as a server just fine.
I have also tried Multiple Users (to no avail).
I tried a reinstall of Tiger, which, interestingly enough, didn't give me the option for Archive and Install and Preserve, but instead only gave me the option to Upgrade (hm, from Tiger to Tiger). While this fixed nothing, the server continued to work after this.
Then I had the bright idea to install the OS to the 2nd drive I had within. 'Surely this would work,' I thought. But alas. It did not. In fact, clean installation, new disk, (and yes, I booted from this 2nd disk), the same BSwC problem.
So, please, Dear Apple Support Discussions, let there be someone out there smarter than I (I'm really not that smart, but I do follow instructions well).
-Ty

How long did you wait for the blue screen to go away? I also have a iMac G5 2GHz ALS.
My computer has been having a problem where on the first boot of the day, it it would hang in the gray screen for about 1.5 minutes and the blue screen for about 4 minutes. I thought it was permanently hung but discovered that it would eventually present the login screen. I could then login normally but none of my firewire external drives would mount. I could restart over and over and the same situation would be present.
Resetting the SMU seems to cure the problem and rebooting would be quick and all firewire drives mounted correctly. I could then reboot as many times after and normal behavior of the iMac would be repeatable.
However after having the system down for several hours and restarting it, the problem would be back.
I have now moved all my firewire drives to a powered hub and will watch over the next day or so to see if that changed anything.
Robert

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History:
One day i was working and things were too slow. I tried to restart but it was taking too long to close all the programs. So I forced shut down by holding the power button. When I turned it on again, my problems begin.
Problem:
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http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/120507/boot-hangs-on-grey-screen-even-w hen-booting-from-usb-drive-with-fresh-os-x-inst

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Hello all,
Thanks for all of your great suggestions and info-- here are a few responses.
1) The disk I just borrowed from my friend appears to be the full retail version-- it looks just like the links that Ali B sent, and is in a large box saying "Mac OSX Tiger, version 10.4"... will this be the proper disk to do an Erase and Install? The only other disks I have came with my Powerbook when it was originally purchased, when it came Panther (I think, 10.3?). Would I use both sets of these disks to do erase and install? Or only the Tiger OSX disks?
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4) Cornelius said: "An alternative would be to completely reformat and erase the entire HDD, then re-install and restore your data from backup. If your backup is in the form of a bootable clone of the entire HDD, you can just clone it back." I use Super-Duper to back-up and the most recent one copied the whole thing-- what would be the later procedure of "cloning it back"?
5) As I'm able to use my computer pretty normally right now, but does it still mean that it might crash/die at any moment? Is there any way to tell?
Thanks so much!

Blue screen with cursor at boot. And everything after that.

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