G4 won't boot, had it running once and once only.

Hey all,
I got a G4 Power mac (2x 450 Mhz cpus) from a friend and he warned me that it didn't boot at all.
I was able to comb these discussions and found a tutorial on resetting the pram/nvram that actually got it up and running. It let out a long beep followed by the regular chime and went into open firmware. I tried using the shortcut keys to launch a OS 9 and 10 cds but it would just go straight into open firmware! Tried the reset commands, kept going into open firmware.
Left it alone for awhile and came back to it; it will not power on again (I couldn't find those instructions on the forums that got it running in the first place). Got a replacement battery for the mobo, still no power on. Getting a power supply and should get it by the end of the week. I have a lot of equipment to test with including 4 rams sticks, 3 video cards (2 agp/1 PCI), and 3 hard drives. I did get rid of the long beep by unplugging the hard drive that connected to the side of the mobo that is near the front of the case (blue connection). *wipes of sweat*
Ok, assuming the power supply is fine, what should the next steps be? Notice anything weird about my story that would lead you to believe that I missed something? Any help at all is much appreciated!
Thanks!
Apple Power Macintosh G4 450 DP     No OS installed as far as i can tell, not sure what to do at all now.

Hi, FriendArtiste -
One item I haven't seen mentioned yet -
When PRAM is reset, the startup disk choice kept in PRAM is reset to a default setting. This setting may not match your setup's configuration. If you have partitioned your hard drive, or have more than one drive and are not using the volume that is the default choice, it can hang the boot.
If that is the case, the solution is to reset the boot volume of your choice in Startup Disk (Apple menu > System Preferences > Startup Disk).

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