Can't find the hard disk

Hi Everyone, My iMac G5 20" (not iSight) is about 18 months old and I never had any problem with it until a week ago, when it started booting up with white blank screen. I tried to start it up by Tiger, but wouldn't have it, so I went to change the PRAM battery, but broke the clip, now put a new battery and fixed the problem somehow, BUT regardless how often and how hard I tried, the computer can not find the hard disk when it reaches the installation stage. Not by the system DVD or by it's disk utility. I tried the hard disk in my PowerMac, it works fine. I tried another hard disk, just the same. The three lights on the motherboard come on just fine. I have also tried it with the original DVDs (10.3.9) but just the same. Any ideas please? Many thanks

Hi,
Ref: iMac 20" (not iSight) model.
Well, I started it by holding down the option key, like usual it only show the flashing icon the the center of the white screen toggling the small square with question mark, looking for the hard drive.
I boot the iMac by system CD, it takes me through first 5/6 stages and finally does not find any hard drive to install. During this process, when I use the Apple Hardware, it does not find anything.
The hard drive works fine on other machines and other working machine hard drive will not be detected on the iMac.
All three logicboard light come on, showing it works fine, according to Apple manual.
The iMac was working fine, then after started to miss detecting the hard drive a few times during it last two weeks of being used, now it will not detect the hard drive.
Looking from logical point of view, it leads to one of the two cables connecting the hard drive to the logicboarde being faulty, but they have never been touched before as well as look fine.
Would it be caused by backup battery (PRAM)?
Thanks

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