Can Apple Hardware Test disk work when a hard drive has no OS installed yet

I removed a bad original hard drive from a PowerBook G4 12" aluminum notebook. It made clicking sounds as it ran, and would not boot. I replaced it with a 320GB Western Digital HD. I also upgraded the original 512KB memory with 1GB.
Before removing the bad hard drive, I was able to boot just beyond the language selection dialog from a full installation CD (Mac OS X v10.2) while holding the "C" key during power on, but could not install it, of course, on the bad hard drive.
Now with new hard drive replacement in the PowerBook (formatted via fire wire from a MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard) and the upgraded memory, I ran a Disk Utility check via fire wire and found the new hard drive in the PowerBook to be in good working order and ready for an OS installation. However I can no longer boot the PowerBook G4 with the full installation CD in the customary manner, getting instead the flashing question mark over the finder folder icon.
I decided to see if there might be some other problem by using a PowerBook G4 Apple Hardware Test disk. Upon booting from the test disk, I get a message that declares the disk will not work with the PowerBook G4 machine.
What's up?
Message was edited by: techtoots

There's more to my original question than whats on the face of it. Please read more about this below. However, I will still wish to know if an AHT, say an original one if that's important, will do it's thing when no OS is installed.
Pretty sure that I'm NOT using either disk or sets of disks that came with this G4 PB. Included among what I do have are 6 grey disks:
__PB G4 Software Restore 1
__PB G4 Software Restore 2
__PB G4 Software Restore 3
__PB G4 Mac OS 9 Install v9.2.2
__PB G4 Mac OS X Install v10.1.4
__PB G4 Applications
And 2 Jaguar full install DVDs:
__Mac OS X v10.2 Install Disc 1
__Mac OS X v10.2 Install Disc 2
I was hoping to be able to find something useful among these disks - if not in a strait forward manner, them by some manner of hacking.
I know how to use my MacBook Pro create a disk image that will house any number of these DVDs. My thought is to create something that can be cloned to the PB G4 via fire wire. I just need to be sure how to daisy chain multiple DVDs in terminal mode, if more than one DVD is required in the cloning process.
I have placed an order for Leopard 10.5 - full installation DVD direct from Apple.
Once received, I will have 14 days to return it unopened. So, I want to be sure this PB G4 is operable before I break the seal on the Leopard package.
Therefore it's not so important that I clone everything from the original installation - just enough to see that the PB G4 boots and runs in Finder. If I can achieve that much, I will advance with Leopard 10.5 when it arrives.
My *PROCESSOR SPEED* is 1.33GHz
Other original specs:
L2 Cache 512 KB
Memory 512 MB
Bus Speed 167 MHz
Boot ROMV 4.8.3f1
Memory Slot 256 MB DDR-SDRAM

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Dennis-
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Can Apple Hardware Test disk work when a hard drive has no OS installed yet

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