I don't want to jump in the middle of what Scott is working on. But it seems apparent that there are some permission/path issues.
You can start in the control panel for a quick check to see if the file permissions are all showing okay.(It will not check all permissions but should check enough to make the board usable)
Then you need to check the mysql user permissions you assigned in the config.inc.php file on the mysql server.
Your mysql user my not have all the permissions needed to work properly in mysql.
