Uh-Oh (!!!!!!)

You know how I always said that you could not screw a Mac up ever? I mean, I know you probably could, but if you just click around and say "no" to any messages of the "are you sure you want to format this" persuasion, then you really can't do any harm.

Or at least that's what I thought.

My dad brought home this computer (iBook running OS9) for me to look at. He said it started up really slowly, and boy did it ever! It took about 45 minutes to turn on. I assumed what was probably going on was that there were too many files on the computer making everything super slow. My premeditated solution was to backup the files, wipe the drive, install OSX and put the files back on (within reason). It might not have had a positive effect, but I thought it surely couldn't hurt.

Well, once the computer finally turned on, I looked at the files and there is next to nothing on this computer. Strange. So I started to poke around and found that the computer has the option of running OS9 or OSX, so I decided to switch the startup disk and see what happened.

The computer restarted lickety split, and was working wonderfully! I decided to shut it down and restart once again (where's the harm in that?), and this is where it got tricky.

I turned off the computer, waited 15 seconds or so, and pushed the power button. Nothing. So I pushed the power button again, and again, nothing.

I've tried taking out the battery and putting it back in, starting with and without the power cord connected, but really the thing just refuses to turn on. This is really a very very very large problem, and for the first time ever with a Mac, I am stumped as to what could have happened.

Suggestions?