Blank Index Page

I had someone completely hack one of my sites. They used the images file to alter code etc.
I deleted all the files and uploaded a new version 1.3.9d
All went fine- I got an error message that I needed to update the database. I ran the install and selected the database install. I saw that there were some files that it could not update and gave some sort of message to check the "exceptions in the database" or something like that.
I went to run the zc_install again and got a blank page.
The main index page of the site is blank.
After reviewing the forums, I saw that the PHP version can be an issue. Saw that I had 4.4.9. in Admin of zencart installation (which comes up fine). I went to my host company and found a place that I can upgrade PHP and changed it to 5.2.12. Now in admin section shows that I have PHP 5.2.12. I tried to add code suggested in another post- edit line 51 of the /zc_install/includes/application_top.php: "if (PHP_VERSION >= '5.3' && ini_get('date.timezone') == '')
{
die('ERROR: date.timezone not set in php.ini. Please contact your hosting company to set the timezone in the server PHP configuration before continuing.');
} elseif (PHP_VERSION >= '5.1') {"
This did not work.
I changed the name of the htaccess files in zc_install and zc_install/include but this did not do anything.
I changed the enable_ssl_catalog and admin to False- still blank on index and zc_install.
I would appreciate any help you can give.

Check the similar threads below

Also you can search the tutorials for blank page

/etc/php... php.ini

uncomment date.timezone and lat/long

and remember to restart apache