Hello.

Thanks for the reply. 

I went back and re-did the whole process and this time it worked fine.  My first try was a bit disorderly. 

The problem was the db users and permissions.  When I restored the db I created a user and made it the owner of the db and assigned pretty much full permissions.  I connected to the db via the management studio (this was never really an issue) and I also connected using ODBC as well.  So, here is a thumbnail sketch:

1) Backed up the production SQL Server 2000 DNN database

2) Backed up the DNN file system

3) Created a compressed copy of the files

4) ftp'd the copy of the files from the production server to the development server

5) Extracted the files on the development server

6) I created a user named ‘dnn_database_owner’ and made that user the db owner using sp_changedbowner.

7) Then I created a ODBC data source and tested the connection to the db successfully.

8) So, now I recreated the DNN file system on the dev server.  I had a zip file so I just extracted it to my dev server.

9) So now to update the web.config. The only bits that I changed were the connect string for SQL server and the machine and encrypt keys.  I run SQL Express but I use the traditional connect string and it actually works nicely.

My Connect string:

<!-- Connection String for SQL Server 2000/2005 -->

    <add name="SiteSqlServer" connectionString="Server=justinepiatt\sqlexpress;Database=dnn_copilink_portal;uid=dbowner;pwd=password" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

I also just dropped the extra users that came over with my production database and create a new user to own my test copy of the database.  This was easy.  Create the user give it all the permissions you want and then use the sp_changedbowner stored procedure to change database ownership.

10) I also updated the portalalias table in the database via SQL to remove unwanted urls and added my new sites one.

11) I created my virtual directory and amazingly, the site came right up.

So the key for me was access to the DNN db.

I hope this helps others that are trying to replicate their environment to test with.  I am sure there will be some issued with urls on my site that have server references to my production server, but that is small potatoes for me.  The imporatant thing is being able to test stuff before putting it in production.  Feel free to ask me anything.  Thanks again for the assistance.

Peace,

ltm