John1231,
I had this problem on a 2009 XSERVE. I solved it by using the following instructions and a USB drive and the latest 10.10.2 installer I pulled from the App store. I imagine it would work with any installer provided it is supported by your hardware. Once the USB boot drive was created successfully, I set the Startup Disk to that USB drive in System Preferences and restarted. This got me to the OS X Utilities where I could format disks and setup for installs and other work. I have a 2006 XSERVE but have not tested this method on it. If you are unsuccessful, please let me know and I'll see if I can help further.
Regards,
James Cart
Please read the full instruction list before attempting so you have full understanding of what is to be done.
Web link to instructions:
Create a bootable installer for OS X Mavericks or Yosemite - Apple Support
Text of link to instructions:
Create a bootable installer for OS X Mavericks or Yosemite
With OS X Mavericks and Yosemite, you can create a bootable OS X installer which can be used to install the operating system while started from removable media, such as a USB flash drive.
Before you're able to create a bootable OS X installer, you'll need to do the following first:
Download the OS X Installer app from the Mac App Store.
Mount the volume you want to convert into a bootable installer. This could be removable media such as a USB flash drive, or a secondary internal partition.
You can then use the createinstallmedia tool to convert the volume from step two into a bootable installer based off the installer app from step one. To learn how to use createinstallmedia, use the following command in Terminal:
OS X Yosemite
/Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
OS X Mavericks
/Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
Examples
For example, assuming you have a volume mounted at /Volumes/MyVolume and the OS X installer app is at /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app you could erase /Volumes/MyVolume and convert it into a bootable installer with this command:
OS X Yosemite
sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app
OS X Mavericks
sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app
Notes
You may need to adjust the path to the OS X installer app and/or your removable media device's name in the command.
createinstallmedia is an advanced option for system administrators and as such, requires some knowledge of the command line in order to be used properly. It is only intended to be used with the version of the OS X Installer app it came with.
Last Modified: Nov 6, 2014