restoring from backup, but getting install screen. plz help!

I’m practicing a restore, so I copied my wp directories to my own computer, backed up the database, copied that, and used phpmyadmin to import it into my local mysql. I changed the wp-config settings to match — I think! — my local setup.

One possibly complicating factor: I have temporarily changed my local settings so that my domain (molvray.com) points to local /home/me/www. The idea is that then I can test things without having to change all the links.

Everything sort of works, except that when I go to my restored local site, I’m presented with the install screen. When I change define('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); to the actual name (snowy) I get a message about “error connecting to database”.

So it seems that wordpress is seeing the database I tried to restore, but not any of the contents.

Why did that happen? How do I fix it?

Thanks for any info or help you can give me!