Recovering Lion using Time Machine

Hello!
I have upgraded to Lion 1 day after Apple released it. Everything is OK. But I have a problem with finding and accessing the recovery partition
I tried OPTION key on start up, it didn't work, they only partitions I see are Macintosh HD and Windows.
Also, I tried COMMAND+R, it didn't work either. Lion is starting normally and when the log on window appears, "R"s are added to the Password area.
I just want to be sure that I am safe incase something went wrong with my Mac, I need a solution.
Like in Snow Leopard, I use Time Machine on frequent basis.
The question is, can I use the Snow Leopard Disk that came with my MacBook to recover Lion? or I need the Recovery Partition?
Regards,
AMDeeb

No, if you use a Snow Leopard disc, the RP will not be created. That's why you need to re-download Lion.
No I said its OK if the Recovery Partition wont be created, I just need a way to recovery my Mac OS, even if its an external source, not a partition inside my Mac.
Some say you must press and hold Option first. (I can't test that myself, since I got Lion via the beta program.)
This didn't work either.
It does work; perhaps the site was down temporarily?
Yes it seems the site was down temporarily. Although no message appeared, I think the problem is with my Mac having another partition inaddition to Mac and BootCamp, a FAT Partition.
Last time, BootCamp Assistant couldn't let me create a BootCamp Partition because I have a FAT Partition. I ended up removing the FAT, and creating it after BootCamp was installed.
It seems also this time Lion couldn't create a recovery partition because of FAT partition.

Similar Messages

Recover OSX Mountain Lion using Time Machine Backup

Hi,
Can anyone help me to recover OSX Mountain Lion using TIme Machine backup as i accidently corrupted the recovery HD and the Macintosh Drive?
Regards,
Sanil

As Linc stated, you can boot from your Time Machine backup of OS X Mountain Lion.
Restart your machine and hold down the Option key. Select the Time Machine backup drive to boot from. When it boots into the TM drive you will get the same OS X Utilities screen like in the recovery HD. You can use Disk Utilities to erase your Macintosh HD then restore your Mac OS X from Time Machine.

Can I restore to Snow Leopard from Lion using time machine?

Can I restore to Snow Leopard from Lion using time machine? I did not make a new partition on my external HD. My reason for doing this is to import data from Quicken 2007 to Quicken Essentials and then upgrade back to Lion. Can I restart and hold down the "OPTION" key upon start up that will take me to Apple Recovery HD and recover from time machine? I'm a noob at these sort of things. I appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Probably not. See Kappy's going back to SL from Lion guide.

Mail not opening after reinstalling Lion using Time Machine

I did a fresh reinstall of Lion using Time Machine and not Mail won't open.
It says that mail cannot be opened because of a problem and suggests I contact the developer or possibly reinstall app.
I've looked around for solution but none of the ones out there work.

Indiogdp,
There may a simple answer for you. It was for me. Make sure that Mail (mine is 5.2) is running in 32 bit mode. To check, go to Applications, right click on Mail and select Get Info (command i will do it too). Then find the checkbox next to "Run in 32 bit mode," and select it. Although you probably don't need to leave the info box open I did until I satisfied myself that it worked.
Hope this helps.
Area Man

Back to lion after mountain lion using time machine backup

I have installed mountain lion 10.8.2 form the app store and i am not happy. many of my apps seem to have dissapeared, and some games, such as the sims 3 refuse to run. I also cannot find many of the files to uninstall and reinstall it properly, such as the files in the library folder, appear not to be there at all, even after a reinstallation.
I'm properly annoyed with mountain lion, and i would like to go back to lion. I backed up my lion system using time machine to a usb drive. My question is, is it possible to reinstall lion using this backup? I have been reading a lot of conflicting information online about whether or not it changes the recovery partition back to lion or not, or even if it works at all.
Lion worked fine for me, Mountain lion doesn't, and I want it back!

Thanks again,
It only shows one sparsebundle file (for my computer, my GFs also backsup to the same TC) and there is only one folder shown inside.
I did have some problems copying files in Finder from the mounted sparsebundle to my Documents folder because it was giving me "volume has wrong case sensitivity for backup". However I searched for that error and found that you referred to one of your unix guys and said that I should use:
ditto --noacl /path/to/source /path/to/target
This is working to copy the files that are there. I know that because its in a .inProgress file something seems to have been messed up on the Time Capsule and some files maybe missing, even though i ran the backup a few times this weekend and it always said completed successfully
However the important files seem to be there and time stamps indicate yesterday's files are there and it seems everything from the last three months, so i hope i'm good
As for why it happened, i don't think i ever saw that error message before, but i have a feeling that its because i've manually stopped time machine from backing up quite a few times as i've been traveling almost three months straight and was tired of Time Machine complaining it hadn't been 'home' for a long time.
I'm really looking forward to Lion's local snapshots for the times when i'm 6-9 weeks on the road. Of course i will follow your advise about also carrying an external hard drive since having the only two copies of files on the same hard drive is pretty scary.
Thanks again for your help!

Recovering photos using Time Machine

I accidently deleted an album very precious to me... no external back up other than Time Machine. I've done digging through Master Files using Time Machine but not finding my lost photos. I am wondering if perhaps I can go back in time and find them in the iPhoto trash? Is there anyway to do this? Any other tips to finding lost photos?
Thanks!

Unfortunately you need to restore the entire iPhoto library
You can not restore an album as albums simply do not exist except as database entries.
LN

Restoring in Lion, using Time Machine saved in Snow

I just replaced my HD and am in the process of reinstalling numerous items. I now have Lion, but prior to replacing the HD, I had Snow. I simply imported my vcard into address book, but it combined all the groups. I must have them separated, and there are over a 1,000.
I'd like to do it the easy way: open address book, open time machine, choose last address book back up and voila! Um yeah, apparently you can't since I'm now running Lion.
I do still have the vcard on one of my many hard drives.
I need assistance w/getting the music in iTunes as well.

iTunes is easy, just remove the originals out of your iTunes Library, diddo for iPhoto Library by right clicking on it and "show package contents", re-import into Snow iTunes and iPhoto.
Thing is not to use TimeMachine. Apple doesn't expect you to "go back" and naturally places blocks in the way as it moves forward improving it's bundled programs, so avoiding TimeMachine and transfering manually or via cloning methods.
Now if you have extensive playlists, it might be easier to do this:
If you back on Snow, clone it and disconnect.
Then downgrade to Lion again by hold option clicking on Purchases in AppStore
Once back in iTunes Lion, choose View > Show Groupings.
Tag your music with the Groupings, it's a tag on the song itself, instead of being a iTunes Library playlist.
When your done importing the music back into Snow iTunes, use the Grouping tags in your Smart Playlist criteria.
Now boot off the Snow Clone and erase media, reverse clone. Carbon Copy Cloner or Superdupes.
Also while you got Lion, make bootable DVD's/USB from the Lion installer before installing Lion
http://eggfreckles.net/notes/burning-a-lion-boot-disc/
Make a Lion Disk Recovery USB
https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1433
also make copies of your Snow Leopard disks
http://www.walterjessen.com/make-a-bootable-backup-snow-leopard-install-disc/
So you can restore Lion if need be

How do I reinstall lion using time machine (Macbook Pro mid-2009)?

I am going to replace my hard drive (and add RAM) on my Macbook Pro (mid-2009) myself. I have Lion (10.7.4) currently, and have backed up via time machine on an external drive. I don't have Lion on a usb, and from what I read, Lion Recovery via internet isn't applicable for my macbook (pre 2010). Is the time machine backup a bootable drive? If so, then am I all good so long as my backup is completed prior to replacing the hard drive? If not, how do I create a bootable drive so I can get back to "normal"?
Thanks! :-)

To determine if your Time Machine backup has a Recovery HD on it restart the computer. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. A Recovery HD option should appear on your Time Machine backup drive. Select it and click on the arrow button below the icon. If all is well your machine should boot into the Recovery HD utilities screen.
If all is well then after you replace your drive boot from the Time Machine Recovery HD. Start by:
Drive Preparation for Lion
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your new hard drive (this is an entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
After finishing formatting quit DU and return to the main menu. Select the option to Restore from a Time Machine backup then click on the Continue button.

Unable to recover Mavericks via Time Machine on iMac (2011). I have one Time Machine backup from this week On new Time Capsule. I already attempted safe boot and NPRAM reset. Hard drive and permissions verified as ok.

Some more history - I'm not too techie so added everything in I thought might be significant!
- Installed Mavericks on iMac in October 2013
- experienced regular low memory issues - used Memory Clean app as a workaround
- last week decided to upgrade installed memory from 4gb to 16gb. Faster loading but still running out of memory - just takes longer to do so.
- also last week purchased 2gb Time Capsule (to back up 660gb on 1TB drive)
- one successful Time Machine backup completed last weekend.
- I decided to try and clear some space, tidy my folders, old music files, delete duplicates etc (Not system files)
- then tried out 'time machine restore' just to test it out. Deleted files and folders recovered ok using Time Machine menu (the one that looks like outta space)
- yesterday, Avast Anti-Virus flagged virus detected (sorry, I didn't manage to capture details) and quarantined file, but I couldn't get any windows to respond so forced Mac to shutdown.
- attempted regular reboot , system hanging on white/ apple symbol screen.
- attempted Safe reboot - reboot stalls at mess 'BootCacheControl: unable to open /var/db/BootCache.playlist no such file or directory.
(I don't know if this is significant)
- attempt NPRAM reset, reboot hanging at Apple symbol still
- attempted reboot into Disk Utility. HD drive verified ok. Permissions checked and Safari permissions fixed (only)
- finally attempting restore from Time Machine Backup via Disk Utility. Stalls at 'select a backup source'. Menu is 'searching for Time Machine Backup....'
Nothing is listed, after a few mins machine just goes to sleep.
My Time Capsule and networks are all switched on. No idea what to try next!

Most of the problems like this that people report on this forum are due to bad "utilities" like Memory Clean and Avast.
Your Mac probably didn't have a virus. There has never been an OSX virus "in the wild". Third party antivirus software is of very dubious utility on Macs. Macs are not PCs. OSX has anti-malware protection built into it already.
Do you have any other third party "utilities" on your Mac, such as CleanMyMac or MacKeeper?
Is the RAM you installed the recommended type of RAM for your Mac?
Take a look at this page: Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
But your OS may be damaged beyond repair, or beyond what disk utility is able to repair.
In that case you have a few options:
There is a small chance that a (reputable) third part utility like Techtool Pro 7 may be able to fix your OS.
Try to boot into single user mode (restart, hold down ⌘S until you see a black screen with white text) and repair your hard drive. Here's a reference with directions: Repair Your Hard Disk in Single User Mode | Everything Macintosh
bite the bullet, boot into the recovery partition or internet recovery, and erase your HD, reinstall Mavericks from scratch, and start over. Your documents are probably still on your Time Machine Backup. I wouldn't reinstall the documents via a migration- you don't want to reinstall bad system files along with your documents- but you could copy them one by one back to your internal HD. And most importantly- don't reinstall any third party "utilites" like Memory Clean or Avast (or any other third-party antivirus software, for that matter).

I used Time Machine to recover my Pictures folder. This created a folder called Pictures (original) but I cannot open it. There is a do not enter roadsign, red disk and white bar on it. How can I see the contents?

I used Time Machine to recover my Pictures folder. This created a folder called Pictures (original) but I cannot open it. There is a do not enter roadsign, red disk and white bar on it. How can I see the contents?

Repairing the permissions of a home folder in Lion is a complicated procedure. I don’t know of a simpler one that always works.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.
Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
chmod -R -N ~
The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. When a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) appears below what you entered, it’s done. You may see a few error messages about an “invalid argument” while the command is running. You can ignore those. If you get an error message with the words “Permission denied,” enter this:
sudo !!
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
Next, boot from your recovery partition by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
When the recovery desktop appears, select Utilities ▹ Terminal from the menu bar.
In the Terminal window, enter “resetpassword” (without the quotes) and press return. A Reset Password window opens. You’re not going to reset the password.
Select your boot volume if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select  ▹ Restart from the menu bar.

Can I use time machine to get rid of Lion?

Lion has been a total disaster for my iMac. After installation, everything went very buggy very quickly. Now it is freezing every few minutes. I just want rid of it. Can I use time machine to restore the old system? If so, how? Will my files be OK? thanks.

I point you to Pondini's TimeMachine restore page however you should also printout my instructions as something may go wrong and you need to do it the hard way.
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/14.html
Back to Snow Leopard from Lion install method
Read and print out these instructions, your computer is going to be offline and you wil be cutoff from help until your machine is restored.
Clear the Desktop, Downloads and Trash of anything you wish to keep by placing their files in the respective Documents, Music, Pictures, Movie folders.
Disconnect other drives except the sole backup drive.
Backup ALL your Users folders (Documents, Pictures, Movies, Music etc) manually (drag and drop methods) to a (not TimeMachine) external powered drive (HFS+ journaled formatted in Disk Utility) and disconnect, your going to be wiping the entire boot disk of ALL DATA.
(warning, everything will be gone and not recovered, OS, programs, files, Windows etc all gone.)
Note: You might want to hold c and boot off the 10.6 installer disk and use Disk Utility to format the new blank external drive instead of using OS X Lion if that's hosed. Then reboot into Lion and copy files, may be safer that way.
Here we go!
Hold c and boot off the 10.6 installer disk that comes with your computer and second screen in just STOP there, don't install OS X yet.
Look at the Utilities Menu for Disk Utility.
On the left is the name of your hard drive maker, click it and Erase (format HFS+ Journaled), give it the same drive name as before, and click Erase...
(note: if you want to "scrub" the drive of old files that haven't been overwritten yet, then use the Security Option > Zero Erase, takes a lot longer)
This should wipe the drive of ALL partitions (GUID, OS X and 10.7 Recovery, Windows if present)
When it's done, quit and install OS X 10.6. Then install all your programs from fresh sources and validate/update.
When you setup a first account, use the same user name as before, this way you can simply drag and drop the content of your previous Users folders from the external drive right back into the new Users folders and everything should work peachy. Links in iTunes to music, playlists and iPhoto links especially.
Update OS X to 10.6.8 using the Combo Update for best results.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399
(Note: If your original machine had 10.5 and you want the free iLife that comes with the disks with the computer, then you'll have to install 10.5 first using the same c boot/erase/format methods as above, then update to 10.6 via the disk, then Combo Update 10.6.8)
Final step optional but highly recommended.
A lot of people use a Carbon Copy Clone of their boot drive to a new HFS+Journaled external drive (used only for this purpose) as a "hold the option key" bootable backup in case something goes wrong with their boot drive or need to restore to a previous OS X version.. (in addition to TimeMachine drive for more immediate backups.)
It's not advised to have a Bootable Clone and a TimeMachine partition on the same external drive, as two drives gives hardware protection in case one fails.

How can I use time machine to recover my iWeb09 files?

I read that iWeb stores one's website pages in the domain folder which can be located at ~/Library/Application Support/iWeb. Can I use time machine to recover my iWeb09 files? If so, how? -I tried. I entered my Time Machine back up, and went back in time and brought the domain file forward but it opened only my current site pages, not the ones I am trying to recover. And it says the Domain file was last modified in October 2007 which is crazy because I've been using iWeb a lot and have published many pages. It seems like the uncorrupted pages, which I am trying to recover, existed somewhere on my computer at one point in time and space, less than a week ago, becuse I just published my site to a new hosting service since Apple will soon stop web hosting. So why can I not find them using time machine?

I continued searching and read another person's advise to down load an app named "Find File," then search for .sites. She said spotlight doesn't always find all files. So I did and sure enough, when I searched for .sites I found another Domain package, which I have no idea how it was created but which, it ends up, was the one actually being used by iWeb. So I went to that package then did the time machine and went back to before my web pages became corrupted. I had to delete corrupt blog pages out of my website menu to get iWeb to upload the other page changes even to a local folder.
So I went to that newly found Domain, went back in time, then brought that forward and as you pointed out the domain package had the parts of the pages, the files and jpegs, but not the structure/layout of the pages. So, I guess I gave up on finding the old pages.
Those pages still exist on the Apple hosting server but iWeb doesn't not reverse publication. Cyberduck would bring back the files and bits and peices but again not the pages as a total entity. I'm preparing for the end of Apple website hosting (next month?) and am republishing my old site. I decided to use a new domain name. So my entire original site is still totally intact on the web under the original domain name, on my mobile me site, I guess it will be there till sometime in June?
My problems started when I tried to publish my website to the new server. It just would not publish the whole website in one session. So I decided to do it a few pages at a time. Some pages went up, but as I added more, for some unknown reason the, blog pages, (about 70 subpages), which had aleardy uploaded just fine to the new server, became corrupt and locked up iWeb. Of course once I deleted the corrupt pages I didn't want to continue publishing the site to the host until I found and reinserted uncorrupted pages, knowing publishing changes would delete the already published pages.
At first I thought it was the hosting server's fault, but when I discovered that it wouldn't publish even to a local fold I was able to locate the cause within iWeb, deleted those pages then tested by publishing to a local folder. iWeb worked locally, so I knew I had found the problem pages. Well this is way more than you wanted to know. Thanks for your advise but I'll just start the blogging pages over.

If i use time machine on lion 10.7, can i put all my info back on mavericks from the time machine i did on lion ?

Hi everyone, its my first time using time machine, i want to change from lion to mavericks, but i want to know how that actually works, and if i back up my stuff from lion would it match and would mavericks know what am trying to do here !?.... like i want to have all the sime that i do on my lion OSX but On Mavericks OSX

If you are going to install Mavericks on your existing Mac then you don't need to use Time Machine. It's good to have a Time Machine backup but when you install Mavericks all of your personal files/documents are left intact and are unaffected. Only the operating system files and updated applications are modified on your system.
You may want to consider keeping your Lion backup and setting up the Mavericks backup on a new external hard drive.

HT1338 Purchased a used macbook pro with Mountain Lion. My old Mac runs Snow Leopard is backed up to Time machine. How do I register the operating system to me and how do I use Time Machine to move my files to the new used computer?

Purchased a used macbook pro with Mountain Lion. My old Mac runs Snow Leopard is backed up to Time machine. How do I register the operating system to me and how do I use Time Machine to move my files to the new used computer?

If you look at the User Tips tab, you will find a write up on just this subject:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4053
The subject of buying/selling a Mac is quite complicated. Here is a guide to the steps involved. It is from the Seller's point of view, but easily read the other way too:
SELLING A MAC A
Internet Recovery, and Transferability of OS & iLife Apps
Selling an Old Mac:
• When selling an old Mac, the only OS that is legally transferable is the one that came preinstalled when the Mac was new. Selling a Mac with an upgraded OS isn't doing the new owner any favors. Attempting to do so will only result in headaches since the upgraded OS can't be registered by the new owner. If a clean install becomes necessary, they won't be able to do so and will be forced to install the original OS via Internet Recovery. Best to simply erase the drive and revert back to the original OS prior to selling any Mac.
• Additionally, upgrading the OS on a Mac you intend to sell means that you are leaving personally identifiable information on the Mac since the only way to upgrade the OS involves using your own AppleID to download the upgrade from the App Store. So there will be traces of your info and user account left behind. Again, best to erase the drive and revert to the original OS via Internet Recovery.
Internet Recovery:
• In the event that the OS has been upgraded to a newer version (i.e. Lion to Mountain Lion), Internet Recovery will offer the version of the OS that originally came with the Mac. So while booting to the Recovery Disk will show Mountain Lion as available for reinstall since that is the current version running, Internet Recovery, on the other hand, will only show Lion available since that was the OS shipped with that particular Mac.
• Though the Mac came with a particular version of Mac OS X, it appears that, when Internet Recovery is invoked, the most recent update of that version may be applied. (i.e. if the Mac originally came with 10.7.3, Internet Recovery may install a more recent update like 10.7.5)
iLife Apps:
• When the App Store is launched for the first time it will report that the iLife apps are available for the user to Accept under the Purchases section. The user will be required to enter their AppleID during the Acceptance process. From that point on the iLife apps will be tied to the AppleID used to Accept them. The user will be allowed to download the apps to other Macs they own if they wish using the same AppleID used to Accept them.
• Once Accepted on the new Mac, the iLife apps can not be transferred to any future owner when the Mac is sold. Attempting to use an AppleID after the apps have already been accepted using a different AppleID will result in the App Store reporting "These apps were already assigned to another Apple ID".
• It appears, however, that the iLife Apps do not automatically go to the first owner of the Mac. It's quite possible that the original owner, either by choice or neglect, never Accepted the iLife apps in the App Store. As a result, a future owner of the Mac may be able to successfully Accept the apps and retain them for themselves using their own AppleID. Bottom Line: Whoever Accepts the iLife apps first gets to keep them.
SELLING A MAC B
Follow these instructions step by step to prepare a Mac for sale:
Step One - Back up your data:
A. If you have any Virtual PCs shut them down. They cannot be in their "fast saved" state. They must be shut down from inside Windows.
B. Clone to an external drive using using Carbon Copy Cloner.
1. Open Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Select the Source volume from the Select a source drop down menu on the left side.
3. Select the Destination volume from the Select a destination drop down menu on the right
side.
4. Click on the Clone button. If you are prompted about creating a clone of the Recovery HD be
sure to opt for that.
Destination means a freshly erased external backup drive. Source means the internal
startup drive.
Step Two - Prepare the machine for the new buyer:
1. De-authorize the computer in iTunes! De-authorize both iTunes and Audible accounts.
2, Remove any Open Firmware passwords or Firmware passwords.
3. Turn the brightness full up and volume nearly so.
4. Turn off File Vault, if enabled.
5. Disable iCloud, if enabled: See.What to do with iCloud before selling your computer
Step Three - Install a fresh OS:
A. Snow Leopard and earlier versions of OS X
1. Insert the original OS X install CD/DVD that came with your computer.
2. Restart the computer while holding down the C key to boot from the CD/DVD.
3. Select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu; repartition and reformat the internal hard drive.
Optionally, click on the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass.
4. Install OS X.
5. Upon completion DO NOT restart the computer.
6. Shutdown the computer.
B. Lion and Mountain Lion (if pre-installed on the computer at purchase*)
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because
it is three times faster than wireless.
1. Restart the computer while holding down the COMMAND and R keys until the Mac OS X
Utilities window appears.
2. Select Disk Utility from the Mac OS X Utilities window and click on the Continue button.
3. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the left side list. Click
on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
4. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on the Security button
and set the Zero Data option to one-pass.
5. Click on the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
6. Quit DU and return to the Mac OS X Utilities window.
7. Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.
8. Upon completion shutdown the computer.
*If your computer came with Lion or Mountain Lion pre-installed then you are entitled to transfer your license once. If you purchased Lion or Mountain Lion from the App Store then you cannot transfer your license to another party. In the case of the latter you should install the original version of OS X that came with your computer. You need to repartition the hard drive as well as reformat it; this will assure that the Recovery HD partition is removed. See Step Three above. You may verify these requirements by reviewing your OS X Software License.

I have a Macbook which is running Snow Leopard. I back up using time machine to an external drive. If I purchase a new Apple Macbook pro running Lion if I use the backup to this will I be able to use Leopard on the new computer

I have a Macbook running Snow Leopard which I back up to an external drive using time machine. If I purchase a new MacBook pro and transfer backup from time maching to MacBook Pro will it also transfer Snow Leopard as its is my preferred O.S.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities.
If the new computer did not originally ship with Snow Leopard installed, no, you will not be able to go back from Lion. Snow Leopard lacks the necessary drivers required for newer hardware.

Recovering Lion using Time Machine

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