Mac Mini (PPC) won't boot off install DVD

I'm having a major issue with my 1.24GHZ G4 Mac Mini. What I want to do is reformat the HD and reinstall OSX. But for some bizarre reason the machine refuses to boot off any OSX install DVD I throw at. I've tried Jaguar and Panther as well. If I hold down the C key during reboot and wait for the Apple logo to come up, I get that but it goes no farther. I can hear the drive being accessed (and I know it's not fault because it works fine under OSX) and yet I end up getting stuck at that logo screen. I can reboot the system normally into OSX Tiger.
I also strangely cannot partition the hard drive from within Disk Utility.
Can anyone give advice?

Possible options/questions...
a) Have you tried using the original Install DVD that came with it?
b) Have you tried booting into Single user mode and checked the drive? (Hold down Apple-S until it boots into text mode and when you finally get the prompt type 'fsck -fy' without the quotes).
c) Also, you may wish to try resetting the PRAM immediately before booting from CD. Let it reset THREE times (hold down Apple-Option-P-R or WinKey-Alt-P-R until it has chimed 4 times) and then hold down the C key to boot from your Install DVD.

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