Have you tried taking out all drives except for the optical, and then giving it a go? That way it would force it to boot off the disc, or not at all.
Sometimes my b&w G3 would like to sit around and scratch its head for about 5 minutes before deciding to boot from a CD, so I would go to the Open Firmware (Command-Option-O-F) and type

Code:

boot 32

, then return. That will put a Mac OS logo on the screen, then sometimes the Mac will go into action straight away. Works with hard drives as well.

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Thanks, I'll try that and see. I have started with only the Optical drive connected (no HDD, no cards except video), but I got no where. I shall try what you suggest and report back

Have you tried removing the SATA card and just using the IDE drive?

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Yup! tried all the way down to a bare minimum and even just 128MB Memory. Even tried an OS 9.2.1 CD (and 9.1) to see if it was OS X Problems. It was a no-go. I will try what Dog Cow suggested, but right now I am sick with the flu and won't be doing much with computers at the moment. I even had to put off work (which I am bummed about since I like what I do) and am pretty much doing nothing but sleeping and trying to hold down fluids.

Sorry if I don't report back soon, but I just gotta worry about my health above all other things.

On a good note, I got paid today for a $300 PC I sold (that cost me only $200 to build) and that I gave him a CRT monitor, Keyboard and Mouse and speakers (which I had laying around even the PC) and am pretty happy about that.