by Robert Brenstein.
A few different points.
phpMyAdmin plugin was meant for your original Moodle site. If I understood correctly, this exercise started because your host removed your capability to use that tool. If you install it in your old Moodle, you can possibly work around the host limitations.
I understood that the database was wiped clean on the new site. Since this is a copy, you should be able to load it up from sqldump again.
Your old Moodle 1.9 is running the database as UTF8. It must. UTF8 trouble on the new site is stemming either from your having additional plugins that created non-UTF8 tables later on or your loosing the UTF8 attributes during database transfer from one host to another or your creating the new database on the new host without setting UTF8 properly. Changing database attributes should not wipe the content, so there is something you are (or your script) doing wrong. Note that UTF8 attribute is set at the database, table, and field levels and Moodle 2 checks all of them.
We do not know how many courses and users and content you have on your old site. If a lot, doing the upgrades (1.9.5 -- 1.9.19 -- 2.2 -- 2.5) might be the way to go. If not so much, creating a new empty Moodle and recreating content and/or using import/export might get you back in business (however, you still need to get your old site to 1.9.19 first). Some content might not transfer no matter what and may need to be re-entered.
phpMyAdmin plugin was meant for your original Moodle site. If I understood correctly, this exercise started because your host removed your capability to use that tool. If you install it in your old Moodle, you can possibly work around the host limitations.
I understood that the database was wiped clean on the new site. Since this is a copy, you should be able to load it up from sqldump again.
Your old Moodle 1.9 is running the database as UTF8. It must. UTF8 trouble on the new site is stemming either from your having additional plugins that created non-UTF8 tables later on or your loosing the UTF8 attributes during database transfer from one host to another or your creating the new database on the new host without setting UTF8 properly. Changing database attributes should not wipe the content, so there is something you are (or your script) doing wrong. Note that UTF8 attribute is set at the database, table, and field levels and Moodle 2 checks all of them.
We do not know how many courses and users and content you have on your old site. If a lot, doing the upgrades (1.9.5 -- 1.9.19 -- 2.2 -- 2.5) might be the way to go. If not so much, creating a new empty Moodle and recreating content and/or using import/export might get you back in business (however, you still need to get your old site to 1.9.19 first). Some content might not transfer no matter what and may need to be re-entered.