Mac HD Erased! Help me install Mountain Lion

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I bought a used imac and the previous owner didn't wipe all of their files off of it. I was hoping to do a clean sweep of the operating system while simultaneously upgrading it from Leopard to Mountain Lion. I used disk utility to wipe the hard drive after booting up from an OS X install disk from one of my other computers (which is a couple years newer - Snow Leopard). I soon found out that this disk couldn't be used to install the OS back on the hard drive.

I have formatted my external hard drive to be a bootable install disk of mountain lion following some steps online. I have checked this disk with my macbook that currently has mountain lion, and it works. I can boot up directly to the disk with my macbook . When I put it in the imac, it doesn't work. It recognizes it as a bootable disk when I hold down "option" at startup, but it doesn't actually work when I select it.

Any tips? Any help is greatly appreciated!! I am stuck and really need this fixed. Thanks!
 

chscag

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Your Mac's Specs
2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
What are the specs on the used iMac? Model and year?
 
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I think I solved the problem. Apparently you have to plug in the external drive into the usb port on the back of the computer and not into the usb port on the side of the keyboard. Thanks.
 

chscag

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2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
That's correct. The built in USB keyboard hub is only for a mouse or small capacity thumb drives. You can also plug in various low power devices.
 

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