New hard drive in 2009 iMac has been installed and now I have a folder with a question mark displayed on start up.

I installed a Barracuda 500 gb drive. When I attempted a reinstall based off an external hard drive using time machine, it showed an error message of not being able to complete the back up. This was after I formatted the new drive using disc utility. I reformatted a different external drive and let it make several back ups. I then put the new drive into the machine and now I only get the folder with the question mark. It is a late 2009 iMac. The OS updates have been through the on line store and I do not have back up discs. Everything SHOULD be backed up on my external.

when you partition and format the new bare drive are you running off of an install disc in the optical drive? I have used the install disk for Leopard to access the Disc Utility (did not install Leapard, just used it to access the Disc Utility) as well as the machine prompting me to take action due to the new hard drive being recognized, again using disc utility and using the install disc provided by the hard drive manufacturer. All of these were done according to instruction as previously mentioned, on a reformatted and partitioned drive each time.
What OS version are you nstalling on the bare drive before you attempt to restore from your Time Machine backup? I have not installed any OS on the bare drive. I do not have a copy of Lion 10.7.5  as I purchased it through the app store. I was under the impression I could reinstall all the data through Time Machine but that is proving elusive - frustrating.
Are you trying to use the Time Machine "star wars" interface to restore or are you using Migration Assistant? I am not using migration assistant. I have been using the Time Machine restore application.

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