Hard drive failure (why can't I start up with boot disk)?

Running OS 10.4.6. I was getting flashing question mark at startup. Tried starting with Disk Warrior holding down "C" key. Got Apple logo, but then screen frooze with horizontal lines across screen.
Rebooted, held mouse to eject disk. Tried TechTool Pro disk. Would not boot from that either (got circle with slash logo I think).
Finally was able to boot with Tiger install disk.
Ran disk utility from Tiger disk. My internal hard drive showed up in red letters and said "failing"
OK.....I can understand that.....I guess my hard drive crashed (on my 2 year old Powerbook...oh well)
But, why can't I start up with any of my boot disks (Disk Warrior, TechTool) only the Tiger install disk. Also the Panther and Jaguar disks will NOT start it...only the Tiger disk works. One more thing I'm wondering....I connected my external firewire drive that has a boot partition on it that I have started up with in the past....and it won't boot my laptop either.
Any ideas? Thanks for any insight. Guess I'll head to the genius bar tomorrow. At least my extended warranty is still good (I think).
Powerbook G4 17 1.5 ghz Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Here is what the outcome was:
I took my Powerbook into Apple Genius bar (still under 3 yr. AppleCare), he determined that my hard drive had crashed. He shipped it for me to be repaired.
It came back with a message attached saying that the source of the problem was my 3rd party RAM, which was a 1 GB module. The note said that the memory had been removed...and that in some cases like this the removed memory will be sent back to the customer and will be in the box somewhere. I checked and it wasn't there. The "Get Info" for my system said I was now running on 512 mb instead of the usual 1.5 GB. The note said that this 3rd party RAM had caused the hard drive to fail, so the hard drive had been replaced.
I ordered a new 1GB RAM module from Apple for $300, didn't want to take a chance on 3rd party again. But....when it arrived, I went to install it....and my 1GB 3rd party module was in the slot....it just wasn't pushed all the way in I guess. I pushed it in firmly, closed up the computer, started it, and the "Info" read 1.5 GB again. I ended up removing the 512mb module and replacing that with the new 1GB one I bought from Apple. So now I have 2GB of memory and and extra 512 that I can't use. It has been running fine ever since (more than 2 months)
Can bad RAM really make a hard drive go bad?
I wonder why they said they had removed the RAM, but it actually had not been removed (at least not completely)
Powerbook G4 17 1.5 ghz Mac OS X (10.4.7)

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