imac late 2009 load OS on new hard drive

I have an iMac 21.5" late 2009. Yesterday, I replaced the dying Seagate hard drive with a new Seagate Hybrid (SSD/HDD). There was no OS on the drive. I created a startup file on a 8GB USB jump drive with DiskMaker X to load up El Capitan upon startup. I held down "option" key as the computer booted. At first, there was a flickering gray screen with the apple logo and the "loading bar." Then a BLACK SCREEN. The flicker was strange. Maybe I didn't reconnect the LCD ribbon well enough? Anyway, tried again. Repeated steps. And this time, I got a white screen with a flickering gray logo and "loading bar." Then BLACK SCREEN. Tried again, but this time held down "Option - Command - P - R". Now it is just black - no response. Does anyone have an idea of what I need to do?