iMac this item is temporarily unavailable

[ShayOh]

HI guys,

i received an older iMac (A1225) AND i want to make use of it for the kids, it has been reset by previous owner, but now when i try and set it up, i get the error "this item is temporarily unavailable".

i do have an Apple account from previous years when i owned an iPhone 6s. and i was trying to use that account.

I'm at loss, and keep getting that error. i tried a bunch of guides i found online, nothing worked,
any idea how to solve the problem will be much appreciated 

[Roswell]

It was likely reset with a paid version of OS X, which as a new owner, you don’t have a license for and it’s erroring out when it can’t find it attached to your account.
 

Back when that machine came out, OS X upgrades were paid software. Basically, imagine if you took a Vista machine, wiped the drive, installed Vista and shut it down without putting a license code in and handed it to someone else. That’s pretty much what you’re experiencing.

 

You’ll need to create a bootable drive with a valid license of OS X/macOS. Later versions are free and can be downloaded from the App Store, though I’m not sure if your machine supports the later free versions, you’ll have to check. Otherwise, you’ll need to pay like $20 for a Mountain Lion license.

 

Bad news is that you need to do this all from a different Mac while logged into your own Apple ID on the App Store.

 

 

[gRaN-Ma project]

In order to reinstall macOS Base System over the internet use Shift-Option-Command-R.

After you can try to disable the System Integrity Protection temporarily
In macOS Base System:

Launch Terminal from the Utilities menu.

Run the command csrutil disable

Restart your iMac.

 

Then if it doesn't work, you can decide to install another free operating system by a USB ISO (always with SIP disabled), for example FreeDos.