Can't reinstall OS X on 2008 MBP

[Fzang]

First I tried upgrading to Yosemite. It hung during the installation, so I rebooted. Now it insists on continuing the installation, and is unable to boot into Snow Leopard that was installed before.

The Cmd L log says something about disk permissions, but the Cmd R recovery is unable to repair them.

SO,

I made a bootable El Cap USB, which boots but DOESN'T give me any option to launch disk utilities. It goes directly to the OS install sequence... and also fails.

So I can't repair the disk, can't wipe it, can't update it.

What to do?

 

[CoastalOR]

Boot from your 2008 MBP Install CD to "wipe" (format) it before a installing the OS.

 

[Fzang]

Boot from your 2008 MBP Install CD to "wipe" (format) it before a installing the OS.

In the unfortunate case that I don't have said 8 year old CD still?

Edit 1: Managed to wipe the disk with the disk utility, alongside the installer running. I don't even know why that's possible. Booting from USB now to see what's happened...

Edit 2: It's actually doing something that resembles an install now! Hope it works.

Edit 3: It works!