References for Backup and Restore

Man did this give me fits!
Until I have time to write out what I came up with
here are the articles I am referencing:

yea - this is what I want to do...
http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2008/01/15/pilots-proof-of-concepts-test-and-pre-production-environments.aspx

but how????

I tried the command line - got errors:
backup
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263441.aspx
restore
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc671617.aspx
How to Recover a Windows SharePoint Services Farm
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb795596.aspx
Back up a farm by using built-in tools (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263298.aspx
Move content databases between instances of SQL Server (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288554.aspx

I tried to use the backup and restore utils in sharepoint central admin
-got access denied errors
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262946.aspx
http://www.windows-tech.info/15/b0dffeee963e602d.php



this is a good comprehensive one - but I did not like having to re run the config wizard
http://lkar.blogspot.com/2008/05/moving-moss-project-server-2007.html

this one is even better - step by step (simple) NOTE THE PART ABOUT NOT CHANGING THE DB NAME??? not sure if that is true
http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Server/MS-SharePoint/Q_23185385.html#a21129547

this is a good one
http://office12.blogspot.com/2007/05/when-sharepoint-2007-restore-fails.html

at the end I was getting an error while restoring (after the restore - but during the attch to the website)-http://www.sharepoint-girl.com/2007/12/error-on-restoring-wsscontent-database.html

restore MOSS 2007 problem: IIS Web Site already in use by Sharepoint
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointadmin/thread/6f75daf7-1b84-43ed-a98c-280d5afc35b4/

others
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/33771569/backup-and-restore-from-t.aspx

this one is backwards
http://blogs.msdn.com/priyo/archive/2008/01/14/move-moss-2007-from-test-to-production.aspx


this guy had fits too
http://wss.made4the.net/archive/2008/05/26/solution-development-in-sharepoint-2007.aspx

cool deployment tool - on codeplex
http://www.codeplex.com/SPDeploymentWizard