The CDs appear to be clean and scratch free.
The external drive powers up, but there does not seem to be any recognition of it. This is a USB connection...is that OK?
I am working with only the AC Adapter, no battery, but have tried the power drain.
Yes, when I copied the OS from another Mac, I did selet the bootable option.
Another bit of info I just learned, based on an earlier comment about the HD cable. I examined it and it appears OK and connected well. Out of curiosity, I unplugged the cable from the logic board, and tried a few different start-ups.....they all gave the exact same results as the start-ups tried with the cable connected. That suggests it is never getting to the hard drive. Also....when booting from the CD, I never get the spinning wheel with the Apple logo....just the logo, then it moves a couple of pixels on the screen and freezes. I can hear the CD drive spinning....so maybe I have a bad CD disk?