Local copy, trouble copying design from live site

I'm hoping that I've done enough to earn some responses.

Had a local site set up but a virus on pc killed that setup. Have a backup of the MySQL database though. The live site is fine.

Have reinstalled locally but don't seem to be able to copy design down. I have read customisation documentation on here "Things a Zenner should know" etc. and wrestled with this for 2-3 nights now. Re-installed a few times. Copied files and folders over NUMEROUS times. At wits (feeling witless right now) end , lol.

After the first few tries I noted following attempts:

1. Have copied whole includes folder over - did not work

2. Reinstalled ZC and copied languages\english over - did not work

3. Reinstalled ZC and copied languages\english AND includes\templates\MY CUSTOM FOLDER\ over - did not work

4. Reinstalled ZC and copied languages\english AND includes\templates\MY CUSTOM FOLDER\ over configue.php file(s) from includes\ over, checking them in Dreamweaver for correct local code references - did not work

I could go on as I have tried a few other variations and I'm mystified. It's worse when you had it working and do not remember, it was mid last year when I first did it.

Can it be related to the MySQL database?

Any ideas? Think I've been looking at this too long!

Thanks in advance, I will be frequently checking for ANY suggestions.

Yes most likely a DB thing

Just follow this tutorial in reverse

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=99

Thanks dude(tte),

It was the mySql database but the kicker was that the table names had changed. I did not expect that to be the case. I had a guy doing some dev work so I don't know if it was him or me but here's the thing to look out for.

files: includes/database_tables.php will list the tables names but make sure you look at the includes/configure.php file to see whether you have DB_PREFIX set or not.

// define our database connection
define('DB_TYPE', 'mysql');
define('DB_PREFIX', '');
define('DB_SERVER', 'localhost');
define('DB_SERVER_USERNAME', 'root');

I then used the RENAME syntax to change all the table names. The local copy now works.

Thanks again for the input.