Can find a drive to install OS X on my operating system

Not knowing how your Mac was formatted, or its age, it may be that your Mac's format is too new for certain operating systems.

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3003

If you lookup the EMC# on the foot, we can tell you what format you should have, if the drive is healthy, and if external hard drives of a certain type are supported.

Go into the Disk Utility and mount, repair, or erase the internal drive. If it doesn't show up there, it's dead or not properly connected.

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