Macbook won't boot, shows flashing folder after about 1 minute

I recently bought a MacBook A1181 2007 model, and it will not boot.

When I press the power button, I get a white screen and I hear the Apple boot sound along with the CD drive making a little noise. At first, the HDD made an awful noise, but I replaced it, thinking that would fix the no boot problem, but it did not. It doesn't make that noise anymore. After about 1 minute on the white screen, I get a flashing folder with a question mark. If I press the "C" key, it will show that folder, only not blinking.

I have pressed "option" upon boot to try to get to the recovery screen, and that just brings up a cursor after a couple seconds and nothing else. I've tried just about every key combination I've read about, and none of them work.

I tried removing each of the memory modules, and there was no difference. With neither installed, the computer would not turn on, instead the white power light lit up and no more.

Do I need to get a recovery disk or something? How can I get this laptop to boot?