Time machine backup- Help please.

[J o e l]

I never made a backup on my Macbook pro, and recently broke it beyond repair. Don't know how I managed it, but the whole Macbook Operating system is deleted and overridden by Windows, and theirs some formatting error when I try to re-install Lion.
My ONLY option is to backup my laptop, however I never made a backup (I'm an idiot, I know). Is it at all possible for me to use my mothers Macbook Pro to backup her mac and for me to use that backup?
I'm a bit of an amateur at this, so forgive me for asking but,
Our hard-drive is a SeaGate wireless hard drive (1 terabyte) , can I backup to that and access it from my mac which has no OS.
Also doing anything through Windows is impossible, I installed Windows Xp 2002, thinking it would be good enough to use, however it cant even connect to my wireless..

Thanks for your time, I appreciate it.

 

[Weaselboy]

Not sure what you are trying to pull off Mom's machine? Do you mean copy the OS from her machine?

It sounds like your XP install wiped the OS X partition.

How are you installing Lion? Once the Lion install screen starts go into the Utilities menu at the top and select Disk Utility then use that to format the entire drive into one partition in the Mac OS Extended format. Then proceed with the install and it should work.