Full system restore using time machine - error

I have a mid-2010 17 inch MacBook Pro, currently in Afghanistan and my hard drive crashed.  I have an external hard drive that I have used for time machine backups.  Just installed my new hard drive, followed the instructions for using disk utility, system restore, etc.  when I go to restore my system, it gives the following error:
"An error occurred while adding a recovery system to the destination disk.  Restart your computer and then try restoring again."
I've restarted, I've used both the option key on boot up, command r, I've gone to Pondini's site for troubleshooting.  Cannot get it to restore. 
I'm not sure if I maybe need to reinstall Mountain Lion, I shouldn't because it should be in my backup HD.  But downloading Mountain Lion here in Afghanistan is not plausible with my connection speeds.  Over 100 hours download time. 
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Not Disk Utility. That is for restoring an IMAGE you made with Disk Utility. You need to boot the system from the original OS X install disc and use the option to restore from backup found in the Utilities menu item once the system boots from that OS X reinstall disc.
Or if you made your TM backup with Lion, Mt Lion or Mavericks installed that TM backup drive has a copy of the Recovery HD files on it and you can boot the system from that drive.

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