I bought a 120GB Hitachi Hard drive from PBMedic and installed it today. My computer doesn't recognize it. I struggled with it all day to no avail. I hope that I didn't damage it somehow while handling it. I don't believe that I damaged the pins that attach to the cable connector, they still appear straight, but I am not sure. I suppose it could have been damaged due to static discharge, but I was careful to ground myself by touching the frame and I never detected any kind of shock so I honestly don't know about that either.

When I boot up the computer, I get a flashing folder and a question mark, followed by the mac symbol, that goes on repeatedly. I have tried booting the computer from the Restore disk, but it does not read the drive as being there. I am at a loss of what to do. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

You need to format the drive first. Boot up from your restore disk, choose Disk Utility from the Tools menu and erase the drive to create a partition.