Hi Gwen,
I know you have already started, but I'd suggest the following route:
0. Ask your client the login info of the admin user.
1. If you don't have it yet, installphpMyAdmin (I just saw that the Xampp package includes it, but I'll leave this as a reference).
2. Create a directory named course_data outside of the DocumentRoot Directory (e.g. c:\xampp\course_data)
3. From the SQL backup you have, get the name of the database and use phpMyAdmin to create a new database named like the original. You can create the database user with all the permissions and the corresponding database in one step.
4. Install the latest Moodle 1.9.x version using course_data as the name for the Moodledata directory and the name you used for the database. Once finished, logout.
5. Now unpack the contents of the course-data.tar file. You first need to check if the file was created by packing the course-data folder or its contents. In the former case you would overwrite the course-data directory you created in step 2; in the latter, you would just unpack the contents in the directory.
6. Restore the vle_schoolname_edu.sql SQL file.
7. Log in and check that everything is working fine.
Assuming everthing went fine up to this point, then:
8. Log out and backup your complete installation (the xampp, moodle code, moodle data and database folders). As everything must be under the xampp folder, just pack it.
9. Upgrade the installation to the latest 2.2.x Moodle version.
10. Log in and check that everything is working fine.
Assuming everthing went fine up to this point, then:
11. Log out and backup your complete installation.
12. Upgrade the installation to the latest 2.6.x Moodle version.
13. Log in and check that everything is working fine.
Once again, assuming everthing went fine up to this point, then:
14. Log out and backup your complete installation.
15. Log in and start creating the course backups.
Cheers!
--- References