Quizzical Floppy has occupied plenty of space in these forums. The resulting mounds should be visible from afar. If an intended startup volume causes the system's Start Manager to return a Quizzical Floppy, it means that valid boot blocks could not be found on that volume. That the boot blocks are not there should not be possible on a full install CD, nor should a valid System Finder, which is the next requirement, be missing. That the CD is damaged enough (optically) for the boot blocks not to be findable is a different matter. Cleaning the CD may overcome the problem, but if surface damage to the CD is not removable, cleaning will not do anything useful for you.
... I don't want OS X, I want OS 9 from a USB hard drive since my OS 9 disk is screwed up. I did manage to make a backup before the disk got messed up.
Target disk mode will allow installation of OS 9. It is not tied to installation of OS X. If your CD cannot be persuaded or browbeaten into the install directly, copy a working OS 9 installation from another Mac, or use the CD from another Mac through TDM to the iBook. The only danger in either of these latter suggestions is that TDM will convert the iBook into a witless appendage of the host Mac, and iBook-specific software may not be installed because its HDD will, temporarily, not 'belong' to it but to the host Mac.
Don't forget to (re)install OS 9 HDD drivers for the iBook, or it will not be accessible to the OS 9 install CD or to a host Mac running OS 9.
If you review the problem to date, is it possible that absence of OS 9 drivers from the iBook is the root cause of all your present troubles?
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