HELP!! restoring a Macbook Pro

I bought a Macbook Pro off Craigslist cuz I saw a great deal.. its fully functional but the owner didnt give me a password so can I use my recent time machine back up on my external hard drive to restore it to that of my account? I have a Macbook Pro 13 (2009) already & the one I bought was a 2010 Macbook Pro.. help please

Connect the two via a Firewire 800 cable, start up the 2010 one in Target Disk Mode, it will mount like an external drive on the 2009.

Use Carbon Copy Cloner to *clone* your existing 2009 machine to the 2010 machine. CCC will cost $40, SuperDuper will let you do the straight clone for free (but costs $32 or some such for incremental backups).

I wouldn't attempt to undertake a complete Time Machine restore containing an OS that had been installed on an earlier MacBook Pro. Boot from your Snow Leopard install DVD as shipped with the MacBook Pro, install, then migrate in from your Time Machine Backup. If you don't have the install DVD, I doubt a retail version will work as the last version was only 10.6.3, you are likely to need newer. You can order replacement install DVD's from Apple, they'll require your S/N.

Another option is to install Lion or Mountain Lion if you previously upgraded your 2009 MBP and made a bootable installer, then migrate in.

What chas_m suggests will also work, but Apple recommends using the correct OS build for the Mac. Doing this is far better if your older MBP has been upgraded from the original OS it shipped with. Unless it's changed recently Carbon Copy Cloner has a free trial period.

CCC has changed recently. It is now $40 shareware and does not offer a trial period anymore.

Carbon Copy Cloner's Transition to a Commercial Product: Frequently Asked Questions / Getting started with CCC / Knowledge Base - Bombich Software Support

I fixed it by changing admin from the ROOT

It is now $40 shareware and does not offer a trial period anymore.

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Technically, Carbon Copy Cloner is no longer considered Shareware. While older versions can still be used within limits, CCC is a fully licensed commercial product. BTW, it's the best $40 you'll ever invest in a product which can save your bacon.