I spent days beating my head against the wall trying to move WordPress data between my development environment and production, using VMware clones and various other methods. The trouble is that WordPress stores its site URL all through the database, including inside serialized data, so a simple find-and-replace breaks things.
Then I found the Search Replace DB tool from Interconnect/IT, which made the job much easier. It safely updates URLs and paths across the whole database, serialized data included.
Search and Replace for WordPress Databases (Interconnect/IT)
Give it a look and see what you think. Delete the script from your server when you’re done, since it gives full database access.