No "New Mac for My Mac". Leopard not finding disk, Apple doesn't care...

Question

After several years and several Macs I hit my first major bump with Apple. Today, I felt like I was back in my days of owning a windows machine. (Well, not really.)
I decided to update my G4 Quicksilver (2002). It's a 933Mhz. I installed the max RAM (1.5G). And ordered a new hard drive and OSX Leopard. I didn't want to do an upgrade, but a clean install. And I figured I would install on a larger drive instead of the 50G drive that came with my Mac.
Using Apples site as a reference for upgrading to a SATA drive. I bought a Sonnet controller and a Seagate 500G drive. Both installed quickly and without any trouble, my Tiger disk mounted the new drive. And in Disk utility I partitioned the new drive.
BUT, when I tried to install Leopard, and it rebooted to the setup screen, it never sees the new drive. I found this problem repeated on several forums and I have tried all of the suggestions. They did not work for me.
As a test, I put my Tiger install disk in, and it sees the new drive immediately. But Leopard does not.
I called Apple support. Long story short, when they could not figure out what was going on, (and pretending they have never heard of this problem) their answer to me was, "Since you are not trying to install Leopard on your original hard drive, we can not give you any support".) When I argued that all I had done was install a larger hard drive, like everyone does, and that this Retail Leopard Disk was sold as a "New Mac for your Mac", they didn't care either.
So, it doesn't matter how long you have been a loyal customer. Or how many systems you have registered with Apple. Or how many of your friends and family you switch over to Macs. The bottom line here, is well, their "bottom line". If I really want a "New Mac", I need to buy a "New Mac". That's basically what I was told. Never mind that I do have several Macs. I just wanted update this one.
I am very disappointed in Apple right now. I paid for this G4, I paid for the 3 year support plan, which I never used. I paid for this Leopard software. But because I wanted a larger drive, they tossed me aside.
So, having said all that. If anyone has any ideas, I would appreciate it.
Things I have tried that did not work are the "set and wait" solution. I waited over 2 hours and the disk never mounted.
I tried Disk Utility in the setup and it doesn't see the drive. I tried Terminal. It sees the drive but not as a partitioned drive. And it won't mount the drive.
I thought I might install Tiger, then upgrade it to Leopard. I would like a clean install. Not sure what will happen if I choose "erase and install".
Having said all that, I do still think Apple is number one. But they need to fix this issue fast.
Thanks in advance,
TroyD.

Answer 1

Ok, here is an update of what I had to do.
I did as requested and contacted Sonnet. I already have the current firmware. But they told me this problem showed no real pattern. Some people had this issue, others did not. What I ended up doing works so far.
I installed a clean version of Leopard on one of my current ATA drives. Though I did encounter the "Blue Screen", once I forced it to reboot, things seem to work and I have not had the blue screen again. I ran all the updates to Leopard and rebooted back into my first ATA drive which runs Tiger.
Then, I used SuperDuper to clone copy the fresh install of Leopard from the ATA drive to the new SATA drive that Leopard could not see before. Then, I set the new SATA drive as the startup disk and rebooted. So far so good. I haven't done much with it yet, but it seems "snappier" and I have high hopes that it will give me what I was looking for. (A slightly faster G4).
Troy