Prior Cloned Drive(s) won't recognize on New Macbook Pro

Question

Just bought a new (mid-2012) 13" MBP 2.9GHz i7; tried to either:
swap it's drive with my prior (late-2011) MacBook Pro 13" (which I've swapped without issue before);
it yet it only shows a circle with a diagonal line through it (meaning it doesn't see the drive)?
I've always done this with a couple of my SuperDuper! (Lion 10.7.4) cloned drives before; yet this new macbook pro isn't recognizing them internally. They DO show up via Firewire/USB from my External; yet I am NOT able to boot from the External (as I used to be able to prior this new mbp).
Also, please note:
- I've used Disk Utilities (showing no issue).
- I zapped the PRAM immediately.
- The new Mac came with 10.7.3 (and my drives were 10.7.4).
- I've updated this shipped drive to 10.7.4 (command-r).
- I've tried to hold down the c-key upon startup.
Does anyone know why I could swap drives to my prior mbp; (as well as Boot from my External, but not with my new mbp?
Any suggestions to solve this are most welcome, thanks!

Answer 1

No, because in order to download it you must be using the new computer. Now, if you have an external enclosure for your existing drive, then you can connect it to the new computer and reinstall Lion. Since you would be booted on the new computer's Recovery HD, this would download and install the version of Lion compatible with your new computer onto the selected drive of your choice, such as the old drive in the external enclosure.
The essential process:
Reinstalling Lion Without Erasing the Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.
Of course you would change the target drive to the external drive before starting the installation. Reinstalling may take upwards of an hour to complete excluding the time needed to download Lion.