Time Machine restore to new hard drive fails

This is on a Mac Mini (Early 2009), 8GB RAM,  that was running the latest version of Mavericks. This all started when the 120GB hard drive began failing.  The computer was running slow so I tried to repair permissions to no avail and also to repair the disk, but Disk Utility said there was a serious error and it was not able to repair it.  As it was at nearly full capacity anyway I replaced it with a new 1TB drive.
I am using an install DVD from Leopard (my Snow Leopard disc is damaged) to initiate the restore.  I've erased the new hard drive and formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).   I'm able to select my from backups on my external drive and it will go through the entire process of copying everything back (1.5 - 2 hours long) only to give me a message at the end saying there was an error and it could not restore the files.  Restart and try again. (which I have, twice).  My TM backups include 6 user profiles and go back several years (and OS versions).
I suspect there is a compatibility issue between the Leopard install DVD and the TM backup which is Mavericks.   I've searched through the pondini.org site for assistance but nothing addresses this issue.   I also have an iMac (late 2009) running Mavericks.  Not sure if I can do something through Target mode? 
I've tried restoring the latest Mavericks backup as well as the last one I had on Mountain Lion but no luck. 
Any help is appreciated.  Thanks.

Well my day just went from bad to worse.  Somehow I managed to erase the drive with the only copy of my backups. 
I guess the good news is I get 10 points for solving the problem.  

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