Macbook Pro grey screen, new HDD

Requested that your post be moved to the correct forum area for MacBook Pros, as opposed to the one for the 12" Retina MacBook.

Where do I go from here? I figured Internet Recovery would work but it goes through the whole process...

I'm not sure what you meant by many of your steps, but let's start here. What do you mean by the whole process, that it restores your mac to original condition, then when you try to boot you get grey screen?

When you try internet recovery, do you get to a menu or anything?

What year is your mac? Macbook pros made before some year/OS do not have internet recovery and you need to start over with the installation discs. In most cases it doesn't matter if you upgraded to new OS versions, it depends on how the mac was originally shipped.

1) I'm not sure if you are getting into internet recovery. Hold command-R down before you even hit the power button, and hold those down, for what may seem a long time. I may have read somewhere to try another key combo, such as option-R or even option-command-R, but I a may be getting confused with diagnostics. If all else fails, you might try holding D down while booting, or option-D, and see if Apple Hardware Test over the internet is able to run.

2) you say your internet requires a login and password? That may be a problem, I'm not sure. OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support says internet recovery doesn't work with all network configurations, such as captive-networks. You may need to try recovery at a friend's place?

I strongly suggest using a wired ethernet connection, not wireless, if possible. But if you don't have wired ethernet connected, "internet recovery" should first ask which wireless network you want to join*, then the passphrase if it isn't open. If you aren't even getting that far, you might not have internet recovery on your Mac, but Macbook Pros mid 2011 should have it in their firmware. Either you have other hardware problems, or you need to hold command-R sooner and longer.

After internet recovery gets far enough, you should get a menu to re-install OSX, or go to other utilities such as disk utility. I suggest first going into disk utility and reformatting your hard drive (again) and do some disk utility verification or checking of the disk. This might be a good time for a new disk if your old disk is 4 years old; a SSD will speed it up and make it seem like a new computer. But if you were able to recover your files, your disc may last a while longer, but I advise setting up time machine.

Last, when doing some things such as diagnostics, you must be on AC power, not battery. If the system doesn't recognize your adapter, or if it isn't adequate wattage, I would think you would get a warning message, but there is always a small chance it is messing things up just enough to make life difficult.

* I have only run internet recovery twice in my life, years ago and a couple weeks ago, so some of this is from my memory.

A few minutes after my previous post, I remembered, some Macs circa 2011 had some video-logic board issues.

https://www.apple.com/au/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

hmm, does "au" in the above url mean australia?

Back to the topic, if you have a 15 inch or 17 mac book pro 2011, and now you can't the computer to boot into anything, your computer may be eligible for a free repair if the logic board needs to be replaced.

A link in the above link may bring you to another page where one can enter the serial number of their mac and see if it is covered by any extended repair program (?). Technical problems are temporarily preventing me from verifying that!