Please help me install Mountain Lion from my USB on my ERASED Macintosh HD partition.

Hi, So my Macbook 7.1 (running macosx 10.6.8) was running really slow due to poor user maintenance. I decided that i should purchase Mountain Lion and install it over the 10.6.8 version. That worked but my computer turned SUPER SLOW. So i decided to completely startover and erase the partition, and install from the USB. Unfortunately for me this is where my skillset ends, and I need help.
After erasing the Macintosh HD, i created a new GUID partition, and then clicked Restore. I dragged my USB drive under the "source", and dragged my new partition under the "destination". That didnt work so i erasaed the partition again. At this time,  i got an error message saying that i cant erase the partition because its not unmounted.
So thats where Im at. I guess i need to know how to unmount the drive, then how to erase it, then partition it, and then install Mountain Lion from the bootable USB.
Appreciate your help!
Nick

I did the erase from Disk Utility. At the time I had started the computer by holding down Ctrl+R, so i am not sure which recovery drive it used. I can say however that I do still have the recovery partition.
Im a bit dense when it comes to Apples. How do i go about re-installing from the recovery? Also, how do i get around the unmouting issue?

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