[Blisterphish]

I've been working through the Apple tech training on the Apple website. As I work through each of the training areas I test it out on my trusty G4 iBook. I tried to start the system while holding the Shift key to see what 'Safe Mode' was about only to have my mac die.
Now when I boot the system I get no bong sound and the screen comes up with a blank white screen (no text or images).
Things I've tried.
1. Went through the PMU reset key commands. Shift Ctrl Optn Pwr then restart
2. Tried to boot from my FW drive via the Optn menu on boot up but no drives are detected including the primary on-board HD. It searches for a few seconds then hangs.
3. Tried to insert a CD to boot from but the drive will not even pull the CD in. It's like it's not even powered.
4. Tried to boot with Ctl Optn O F to reset the Nvram
5. Tried a PRAM zap but it just boots straight to the blank white screen
6. Unplugged the system, dropped the battery and then restated.
7. Poped the keyboard and reseated the memory (RAM)
This machine worked without flaw until the moment I tried the stupid safe mode thing according to the Apple training site then bam!!!! Now I get nothing but a blank white screen.
any ideas?

[OldToad]

You should try to book into your Panther System install disk and run Disk Utility to repair the disk. You can find it in one of the menus in the menu bar after the disks boots up. Just don't start a new install!
If may say that it cannot fix the HD but run it several times after that. I've have that same message but it eventually fixed it.
Hope this has been of some help. Good luck.

[DPG4450Guy]

Well, Safe Mode can't do what you're describing.
It's merely disabling all but the bare minimum of system software to boot your Mac.
From the looks of things, you've had a hardware failure of some sort.
Do you have a buddy that can try Target Disk mode with his machine?
By the way, try AppleControlShift+Delete to force your machine to see the bootable partition on your external FW drive.