Q: 2010 iMac not booting at all?

How excatly did you go about wiping the entire drive? OS X cannot erase it's own partition so you must have had an external system?

How did you erase the startup disk? Do you have an install DVD or did you restart the computer while holding Command-R?

Theo, you need to get the original install DVDs that shipped with the computer (ask your stepdad) or you can get OS X Snow Leopard from Apple's online store. Click here  

Theo, we're not on the same page here. You don't have an install disc and starting up while holding Command-R does nothing. How did you start the mac in order to erase the hard drive? Starting to believe that we'll never get that answer I'm going to agree with rkaufmann87 that you just need to get a retail Snow Leopard disc for $20 and use it to properly erase the hard drive and install Snow Leopard. Once that's done use Software update to get to 10.6.8 and gain access to the Mac App Store where you can upgrade further if you wish.

In the future this may help also Writing an effective Apple Support Communities question

Hi there,

Try holding down the C on startup while you have a bootable USB stick with OSx plugged in. If this does not work, try holding down Command, Option and R at startup, which starts the recovery over the internet.

If this still leads to no result:

Startup key combinations for Mac - Apple Support

Hope this helps

John

Theo Allen wrote:

 

I don't have the original install DVD's unfortunately

Is an OSX Snow Leopard the only way of doing it? I only ask as when i posted this on a different forum they all told me to use the USB?

if you don't have the original DVDs then you need a valid version of OS X, the DVD I suggested is the correct method. You can attempt to restart in the Recovery Partition (Command + R) on startup and if that works select Install OS X and install it on the HD.

JohnKeeper is wrong, your computer is too old to do a Internet Recovery, if your machine was a 2012 or later that would work but yours is not.

Your welcome.