IMac will no longer boot ANY version of Windows CD/DVD

I have a 20" unibody iMac 8,1 that originally came with Leopard and has been upgraded to Snow Leopard (currently 10.6.1). During Leopard days, it had Boot Camp running Windows XP (for games) and worked fine. At some point, boot camp was removed and the system was returned to a single partition. Recently, I've decided to install Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit (retail cd) and so went through the Boot Camp Assistant to create a new boot camp partition and launch the Windows installer DVD. After going through the partition process successfully, the Windows 7 DVD failed to boot, ending in a black screen with a flashing underscore ( _ ). I tried to boot the Windows 7 DVD several times with the same result. Thinking that somehow the Windows 7 DVD was damaged, I got out my Windows XP install CD and tried to boot that, with the same result (black screen blinking underscore _ ). I tried this with a retail copy of Vista Ultimate 32 bit, with the same result. I have run Disk Utility and verified the disk contains no errors. I have tried manually forcing the boot to the Windows install DVD/CD's by holding Alt during boot, and manually clicking on them, with the same result. I have backed up the entire HD with Super Duper and erased the disk and then restored the from Super Duper copy, in case there was a problem with the partition table. All with same result, blinking underscore on a black screen when attempting to boot off Windows install media.
This machine used to have boot camp successfully running XP under Leopard. Now I can't even boot from a Windows install CD/DVD (any kind of windows). What has happened? Did the Snow Leopard installation change something? Is there a firmware update that is needed? I have tried resetting PRAM and SMC with no result. I am out of ideas. All of these windows install disks work fine if I boot them with my MacBook Pro. It's just the iMac that won't boot a Windows install DVD/CD, of any kind.
Help!

I can boot both Snow Leopard and Leopard install disks, no problem. I cannot boot ANY version of Windows install disk (XP, Vista, 7). My Super Duper backup was a backup of my Snow Leopard install to reformat the drive, since one theory was that the partition table was messed up. No go.

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IMac will no longer boot-up, Pink Lines

27" iMac running Mavericks, purchased March 2010, a great computer; that is until something goes wrong and local Apple support resources are scarce in my location!
Prior to the issue occurring I was performing a cut/paste from a website to a document and noticed red square dots on the screen behind the document I was working on, all functions were frozen. I did a cold reboot and this started normal then horizontal green lines appeared and the system would not come up. I turned the iMac off via the power button and after a couple of minutes switched on again this time the reboot worked, a error log and the option to report the fault to Apple was displayed, I typed a blurb about my issue and sent it off (I do not know what happens to them it felt good). There were no issues for the next few hours using standard functions like web browsing, Email and documentation etc.
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I would like if possible a diagnosis for this issue and if possible a ball park estimate of potential repair, recovery costs, I store most of my records, media etc on a external HD it would great to restore from a backup rather than start from scratch again!
I have photos of the screen images but cannot post on this forum

I can boot both Snow Leopard and Leopard install disks, no problem. I cannot boot ANY version of Windows install disk (XP, Vista, 7). My Super Duper backup was a backup of my Snow Leopard install to reformat the drive, since one theory was that the partition table was messed up. No go.

My iMac will no longer boot after half installing Maverick (only the essentials package was opened). How can I reboot it back to 10.8.5?

I was able to get a copy of OS X 10.9, but it wasn't the one straight from the App Store (which is free and I wish I knew before I got this other copy, but oh well). There is nothing wrong with the copy, it just simply doesn't initiate the install when you double click on it.
I installed one of the packages (essentials) off file, but not all the rest of them. For some reason the other packages weren't opening because it wasn't accepting my password, so I restarted the computer to see if that would make anything better.
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Thanks for checking in, BDAQua.
Problem solved.
In the docs that came with my Powerlogix accelerator card, I found this sentence buried:
"If you reset the PRAM, the NVRAM code for OS9 compatibility is cleared, so you will have to boot from the Firmawre Update CD and perform this process again in order to boot in OS9."
The "process" it's referring to is the process of setting up the NVRAM for booting into OS9 from the CD.
Fortunately, I was able to find the disk, and it worked as expected. I can now, once again boot into OS9.
Conclusion: My (unadvised) attempt to load Leopard on this old machine apparently reset the PRAM on the accelerator card and cleared the NVRAM code for OS9 boot. Although I did attempt to reset the NVRAM via Open Firmware, it did not reset it on the accelerator card.
So, thank you BDAQua, for your "Ah yes" . . . that's all I needed to steer me in the right direction.
Gratefully,
tupester

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I have been unable to get the Imac to boot off the Windows 7 dvd or a repair disk. I just get a white screen.
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G4 Gigabit Ethernet
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Thanks for checking in, BDAQua.
Problem solved.
In the docs that came with my Powerlogix accelerator card, I found this sentence buried:
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tupester

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Welcome to Apple Support Communities
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Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

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IMac will no longer boot ANY version of Windows CD/DVD

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