Please help reinstall os x on older imac

[telestar97]

can anyone help, have older iMac 2006 had mountain lion installed. I think it came with tiger , I wanted to do factory out of the box reset. I formatted drive. it took me to internet recovery . said the operating system was not available try back later. apple website says the iMac is obsolete. I can get into disk utility. I can get into safari. . I can see base system folder. it says there are folders and files in base system I cant access them. is there anything I can do to get this iMac up and running. I also have an hard drive from an even older iMac with snow leopard installed if that would help anyway. please forgive me I am a pc user. I would like to get this mac running again before I have to trash it. it was running before I messed with it. it was a gift from my brother to my daughter. maybe set up with my brothers apple id. he has since passed on . any help a appreciated

 

[telestar97]

thank you for your response, I had the two macs mixed up ( iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) is the actual mac I'm trying to fix . I was using Ethernet connection. I read somewhere I might need my brothers apple id which I don't have. idk thanx. I believe it had mountain lion installed before I formatted the HD there are no disks in the box

 

[Cory Cooper]

Ahhh...that makes things a little easier. That model came with OS X 10.6.6/7 and can support up to macOS 10.13.6 High Sierra.

You may be able to download El Capitan from the link above, then make an installer on a flash drive if you have another Mac.

C