Hard drive absent in disk utility - want to erase and reinstall MacOS

Hi there. Any help would be most gratefully received.
I have a Power Mac G5 Dual 2Ghz with 2GB RAM, one internal HDD (250GB serial ATA 7200rpm - the original one), two external HDDs and a Philips 170B display, running (or not) MacOS 10.39.
It was working fine yesterday but on startup this morning it hung for a while on the grey Apple logo and progress "clock" then froze on a blue screen.
I tried removing all cables except display and keyboard/mouse and restarted a few times but to no avail.
I tried entering safe mode but it wouldn't work. Upon subsequent attempts at startup it took me (instead of the blue screen) to the flashing question mark/finder folder screen.
I then booted from my install CD and tried to run Disk Utility to repair the disk. Disk Utility recognised the disk and allowed me to select it. But when I tried to verify it, it failed and told me to repair. When I tried to repair it told me "invalid b-tree node size".
I then tried running the Apple Hardware Test CD. It found no faults at all in the full test of the system.
All of my data is stored on my external HDDs so my next thought was to erase the internal HDD and reinstall my software. (I use the Mac solely for Video editing and the only applications I have installed - in addition to all the basics - are the Apple Production Suite.)
However, this time when I booted from the install CD, Disk Utility would not recognise the internal HDD. The only thing I had done since it had recognised it the last time was to run the Hardware tests. In addition, since running the hardware tests, the HDD started making a strange noise whenever the Mac was on - like clicking with almost beep-like access noises.
The last time I tried restarting and booting into Disk Utility, the clicking began again and then eventually stopped. But still no evidence of the drive in Disk Utility.
Soooooooooo. I don't need to save any data on the hard drive. I have all my software and OS discs. I just want to wipe the drive and start afresh (assuming this is the best course of action?). But I am unable to do so because of this new development in my attempts to fix the problem: the unrecognised hard drive (coupled with the strange noises).
If you have any ideas, please do get in touch. I'm pretty broke at the minute and I'm trying to find a solution without having to purchase a new drive. Obviously, if this is the only solution, then I'll have to bear that cost. But since it has recognised the disk just a few steps before, I'm hoping there's a way back.
Yours in optimism

I am not sure about battery, I still use G4 MDD which is unplugged for months, was always off at night (UPS was off) and still works.
But I would always use both SATA drive bays, and I think you need to invest in one or two new drives.
For now, try disconnecting your drive and see if you can boot from external drive and CD/DVD.
Also see if you can get into Open Firmware.
Resetting PMU would also be worth while when you get in to disconnect your hard drive (I think 3 yrs is more than enough for any OEM drive, too).
http://www.apple.com/support/powermac/

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Message was edited by: OGELTHORPE

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Message was edited by: Oliver Jobson

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Message was edited by: Oliver Jobson

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Message was edited by: jazmyn96

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