Clamshell, the famous Finder and Question mark

can anybody give me some help here. my brilliant cousin was given this laptop, (apple clamshell ibook) he doesn't know much about computers so what he did was go into the hard drive and erased EVERYTHING! the reason he erased it all was because there was lots of *********** from the previous owner and it contained some sort of virus...
now i get this error message. i've tried resetting the pram and all. anyone have any suggestions?

Hi, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
Do you know which version of the OS it was running when he erased it? What method did he use to erase it?
What OS CDs does he have in order to attempt a restore or install?
You may want to try posting in the iBook (colors) Forum, also.
You have posted in the iBook G3 (Dual USB) Forum (the forum for the first all-white iBooks).

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