My mac won't reinstall macos

I bought a late 2009 mac a while ago from an auction, and I have recently decided to try to use it. I found out that it does not have a macos installed on it and it boots into recovery mode. When I go to reinstall the macos that was on it (10.8), all it say is that an error had occurred, and to try again. That is what happens every time I do it. So I tried making a USB installer, and that didn't work. I also tried using a macos install disk (10.6), and that would come up where you choose a startup disk, but when I restart the Mac it would just freeze on the apple logo. I have run out of ideas on what to do, and I don't have the original install disks for the Mac. I don't know what to try now.