Startup manager problem

In a previous post here I used the startup manager to pick a friends OS X 10.5 backup on a WD My Book external HDD. The iMac  A1311 2009 21.5” booted fine and I got the files I needed. I then chose the internal drive as the startup and restarted the computer. I then had many problems getting the computer to start again and eventually took it apart and disconnected both the internal HDD and Optical drive and was able to get it to boot again.
Now my problem is this. If I go to “startup disk” under system preferences and choose my internal drive I get the error “You can’t change the startup disk to the selected disk. Building boot caches on boot helper partition failed”.
The computer will still startup and operate fine, HOWEVER, if I try to load the startup manager with the “option” key held during boot up, I get a blank white screen. I have several bootable USB hdd and no matter which is connected I get the blank screen.
BUT, if I attach my friend’s WD external HDD (the one that was originally connected when the problem began) then the computer wakes up and the startup manager appears and I can continue to boot from my internal drive or any other drive currently attached.
So what is happening here? Will a fresh reinstall of the OS fix this problem? Is there an easier way to fix it?
I have tried all the usual, reset pram, reset smc, repair the disk using Disk utilties, repaired permissions, etc.

Sorry, I missed that because I'm accustomed to seeing acronyms written in all caps. If that didn't fix the issue, then contact Apple Service, iMac Service or Apple's Express Lane.

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