New hard drive, get grey screen when trying Leopard install

We installed a new hard drive ourselves in my G4 older Mac Mini ~ 120 GB, with a video tutorial and photo guide, and this seemed to go very well ~ took less than an hour. The Ram was also upgraded to 1gb (the max available) right before the hard drive (I paid to have this done, shouldn't have, I realize now, since that is easier than a harddrive install, I think). I upgraded the hard drive because the computer seemed to be failing, very slow etc.. The shop that installed the Ram told me they thought I needed a new hard drive.
After the install seemed to go fine, I am trying to install Leopard and am having trouble.
So this is a brand new hard drive with nothing on it, no operating system. I turned on the computer and got one gray screen with something in the middle of the screen ~ a small box, can't remember.
Then I put in the Leopard disc, the fan came on and was noisy for a minute, and now it is compleltey quiet. But all I get is a new gray screen with Apple in the middle, nothing else. Any clues what to do next? I'm hoping there is nothing wrong with our hard drive installation. I'm not even sure how to get the disc out of the computer right now.
Please help! Thanks!

Javier's problem is that the system requires a PRAM reset - otherwise systems that start in verbose mode would then subsequently revert to normal startup automatically.
Your problem may be that the new hard drive in your mini is not yet prepared correctly for the MacOS installer to recognise it.
Once you are booted to the installer disk, instead of attempting an install, open Disk Utility in the Utilities menu. If the drive doesn't show up on the left, it is not correctly installed, and you will need to open the system up again and check that it is connected correctly. If it shows up in Disk Utility, you need to partition and format it correctly. To do that, click on the drive in Disk Utility to select it, then click the Partition tab. Under 'Volume Scheme, select a single volume, then click the Options button to bring up the partitioning choices. For a G4 mini, you want to select Apple Partition Map. Click OK to confirm and it will partition the drive and should also format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Once that is done, you should then be able to run the MacOS installer which will then recognise the drive and allow the install.
For reference, a G4 (PPC) Mac, (including the original minis) require Apple Partition Map partitioning, and Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formatting for a MacOS installer to recognise them.
Intel Macs (including later minis) require GUID partitioning and Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formatting.

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