I have been banging my head against the wall about this for a while.
When I try to reinstall, it asks me for an Apple ID. Nobody around the office recalls what that might be, since it was 8 years ago when it was originally purchased, and the records from that time were messy at best, and we've gone through a substantial management change since then as well. You can put up to macOS 10.11 Yosemite on that Mac.
I purchased a second-hand 2008 iMac and it has been working fine for the last 2 years. When I went to update OSX to Sierra, it asked me for the original owner's Apple ID and password. The previous owner clearly did not follow the correct instructions to hand off the computer. I went through the steps to reinstall macOS here:
I did all the possible permutations of these steps, including formatting my hard drive. Every time when I tried to reinstall macOS, I was given the error 'this item is temporarily unavailable'. Browsing the Apple Support forums, it looks like this is because I do not have the original Apple ID. I do not have this information and it will be impossible to get it.
I then tried this workaround and I was not able to access the iCloud page within Safari
Id Util For Macos 10
This seems like there should be a simple solution.
HOW DO I REINSTALL OSX WITHOUT ACCESS TO THE ORIGINAL APPLE ID AND PASSWORD?
Id Util For Macos Pc
iMac
Id Util For Macos 7
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