How to install OSX 10.7 on a reformatted HD Macbook Pro 13?

Question

Is there any way of installing OSX 10.7 or 10.8 on a reformatted hard drive of a macbook pro 13 inch late 2009 that originally came with Leopard (OSX 10.5). I have just bought a macbook pro i5 and once all the data was transferred to the newer macbook I reformatted the hard drive of the old MBP in the xpectation that I could simply reinstall Lion. The recovery disc starts up ok, but curiously the installer points to mountain lion only and I keep getting a dialogue box informing me that my apple Id has not previously bought Lion (not Mountainlion, Lion). For starters that is untrue, I bought Lion on the app store to upgrade from Snowleopard to Lion on the original macbook and that shows up in the previous purchases screen in the App store application. Annoyingly this whole process does not allow me to re-purchase Lion on the old macbook pro and I am also now unable to restore the system from Timemachine as this now appears to be associated with the newer machine. And yes, you guessed it, I no longer have the original installation CDs, not realizing that I would still need these after upgrading the operating system (twice).
Attempts to start up from the only disc that I do have (snowleopard) results in hopeful crunching of the optical drive followed by a grey screen descending across the monitor followed by the message that I must restart the computer and then this process starts again, so getting nowhere and frustration mounting.
I am now left with a machine that is clinically dead with otherwise perfectly functioning hardware
I would be most grateful for any advice.
Thanks
Jan
(based in UK)

Answer 1

Purchase the white Snow Leopard 10.6.3 disks Apple sells on their online store.
Follow these directions, you need to zero erase the ENTIRE drive of the older Mac. (important!)
How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6
If you don't, the 10.8 RecoveryHD partition will remain and the 10.6 install disk can't repair the 10.8 drive later if there is a issue. There likely also will be a problem installing Lion, as the Recovery HD will be 10.8.
If you install Lion, it will create it's own Recovery HD for it.
Once your up, Software Update until 10.6.8, then you can log into AppStore and install Lion if you have already purchased it, or call Apple and special order it, because AppStore goes to 10.8 from 10.6.8 supposedly now.
You then can reinstall iLife from the 10.5 disks by running the installer or using Paficist from Charlessoft.
Just to let you know, you cannot sell the machine with 10.7 or 10.8 on it because the next owner needs your AppleID to reinstall or update the OS. 10.7 or 10.8.
So if your selling it, just install 10.6.3 and press the power button down, it will reboot to the Welcome Video for the next owner.