Trouble doing a fresh start with new HD

Do this:

Clean Install of Snow Leopard

1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came

with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.

After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see

a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.

2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue

button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.

After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive

size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of

partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button

and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended

(Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.

3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed

with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.

4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup

Assistant. After you finish Setup Assistant will complete the installation after which

you will be running a fresh install of OS X. You can now begin the update process

by opening Software Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your

installation current.

Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

I'm not quite sure I understand. Are you saying your computer cannot boot from your Snow Leopard installer DVD? Are you doing this:

Booting From An OS X Installer Disc

1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.

2. Restart the computer.

3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.

4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple

logo appears.

5. Wait for installer to finish loading.

Have you reformatted the drive porkpie's first post?

Dumb questions -

Did you purchase the Macbook Pro with the start up disk you are trying to use?

I ask because you mention snow leopard but indicate 9.x and someone else is recommending 10.6.

What Macbook Pro do you have? What processor does it have?

There are different options to use when formatting the drive for earlier Macs and those with the Intel processors and later operating systems.

What format options did you pick?

If you have a flash drive of 10Gb sitting around, I would recommend creating a new installer on it though instructions that Apple provides. Then use the flash drive to install the OS that works with your system.

Understand that recently a number of hardware devices have been made obsolete by the latest operating system, Yosemite, 10.10.x

Be sure to choose the appropriate version of OSX for your needs.

If all this is too much, look for your friendly neighborhood Mac repair man or take it to Apple's genius bar for OS install.

Of course there will be some sort of charge for doing so.