Verbose didn't give any clues, it just would not load. I decided to take the plunge with it and used the hard drive from my Pismo (which honestly doesn't get as much use as my other laptops). I've got a 10GB the Pismo will take and run OS 9 just fine.

So about an hour and a half's work later, the iBook is reassembled with a 40GB Hitachi on board. The Pismo was running Tiger very slugishly, but after putting it in the iBook...night and day.

Still only using 256MB of RAM, but the 1.2Ghz G4 must have worked wonders. The computer could run MacTubes to play some music, have a CD copying in background, and check my bank accounts without skipping a beat. A little TLC later, and its a slab of white plastic beauty that I'm completely proud to own. In fact, it runs better than the 1.25Ghz PowerBook G4 12" that I had awhile back...Go figure.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys.