iMac and my failed recovery attempt.

Hi everyone.

As a first time mac user this is my first post on this forum and unfortunately not one I am happy to make.

Two weeks ago I bought an old iMac 24" (early 2008) and although a bit old it still worked beautifully. I froze every now and then and I was told that a reinstallation of OSX would be advised so I followed an appleguide on how to do that but unfortunately I've been sitting at "This item is temporarily unavailable" for the better part of a week.

Not being put off by a challenge, I thought that it must be simple enough to make a boot USB and install the OSX that way. Boy was I wrong.. I dont have another mac so I'm using a windows PC to do this. I've followed the guides from around the net and tried powerISO to make a bootable USB to OS X, tried to make one with transmac and even gotten 2 other DMG files (mountain lion and another mavericks) I've even done a virtualbox installation on my windows PC and saved the Yosemite installation files to make a bootable USB and still, every single time I get to "This item is temporarily unavailable" I can boot from the USB but when I get to disctools and select recover, machine is verified at Apple, I type in apple ID and pass and next thing I know I'm sitting at the same frustrating error message...

So; what are my options? I live in Denmark so going to an Apple Care center og Genious bar isn't an option as they dont exists. I am completely clueless as to how it is even possible to lock myself out of a computer as thoroughly as I have done.

Really hope that someone can help me.
Kind Regards jake.

That's what's confusing me as well. I dont understand why it keeps reverting back to disctools even when I select the USB drive on bootup. I cant seem to get it to install from the USB even when I select it when it boots.

eduardrw said:

do you by chance have a recovery partition on the hard disk from your previous installation?
Reboot and hold command +R key at the same time.
If that works, connect your ethernet/WIFI and install.
Will take a while to download the installer -> a few GB.

Click to expand...

Yes, I did that, and thats when I get the "This item is temporarily unavailable" :-(

metanoiapi said:

insert your flash media.

Run

diskutil list

determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2).

Run

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN
(replace N with the disk number from the last command; in the previous example, N would be 2)

I had to unmount my flash drive in order to get it to work.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry but I'm not familiar with mac so I dont know where to input those commands. Is it in terminal?

eduardrw said:

Is you iMac still working?
if so, download DiskMaker X and the OS X installer to create a bootable USB. http://liondiskmaker.com

Then try the steps mentioned here:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6530402

Make sure to install the OS X version which is compatible with your iMac.

Click to expand...

No its not working, I got a virtuabox running of the system so I might be able to do it in there. But thanks alot I'll try it out.

Edit: I get the following error. Diskmaker error
Edit 2: Was not detecting the USB in the virtualbox. Fixed it and Diskmaker is currently making a bootUSB of Mavericks as far as I can tell. Will report back later.
Edit 3: Installing OS X mavericks on my iMac as I type this. Bloody brilliant Eduardrw. Thanks a million!

Full stop. Freezing continues during installation. Same problem as it had before so I guess I'll try to open it up and replace thermal paste and clean dust out etc.