My Mac is currently running Mountain Lion. I want to install Lion as a dual boot option, for development testing.
I have downloaded the Lion installer from the App store and I have a fresh partition waiting.
When I run the installer, it only gives me the option to quit because my system is too new. The Mac hardware should be supported by Lion.
Best Answer
Use Startup Disk, in System Preferences, to change your boot disk. From there select the second partition. Restart with the Lion setup on a USB drive. You can install it from there.
If the above doesn't work try holding down the option key while rebooting. That should bring up recovery mode. From there you should be able to select the target volume for the installation.
Do a quick google search on making a bootable disk image either on a USB drive or on a dual-layer DVD disk with Lion by using Disk Utility. This is the method I used to downgrade a Mac from Mountain Lion to Snow Leopard.
Let us know if you have tried the above options and what was the outcome.
Some useful links: