spinning wheel at various part of the setup process

Hello all, First off I have a 17 inch MacBook Pro 1,6 (mid 2010). I had a hard drive crash but no backup. I do however have the snow leopard install DVD that came with the system. I have replaced the 500gb HDD with a 1TB and also did a memory upgrade to 8GB (all within specs for this system). After a clean install of the OS, I get the various Welcome screens and then onto the initial setup. at various stages of the install, I will get the spinning rainbow wheel and it will sit for an hour or so (I've only let it go that long, before shutting down and trying again). Example, I'll get to a screen where it asks for my wifi credentials. it'll hang there. It has hung at the, choose your keyboard style. It has hung when trying to create my user account. Also it should be noted, even before I replaced the HDD and memory, I had the same symptoms. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks!