How to migrate instance and database to new domain?

Question

I have tried this multiple different ways. The first way was 

1. create a new instance of q2a on the NEW site domain.
2. Initialize database
3. Use .sql dump of old database and import into new database - ALWAYS fails with some DROP TABLE error

Method 2: 

1. Create new instance of q2a on the NEW site domain
2. do NOT initialize database
3. Go straight to phpMyAdmin 
4. Use .sql dump of old database to generate tables. 
5. This works, but the site still thinks it lives on the old domain. All plugins still point to the old Top Level Domain.  This is creating some serious issues with plugins, which cannot be deleted for some reason 

Answer 1

The error in the first method is almost certainly due to foreign key checks. If you're using phpMyAdmin to import, there should be a checkbox "disable foreign key checks" you can use when importing.

For the second, the problem is most likely the "Preferred site URL" option in admin. If you can't get to the admin to change it on the new domain, look in the qa_options table, it's the option "site_url".