Unable to Restore Site Collection Backup

I'm trying to migrate from a hosted server to our own server.  I have a fresh install of SharePoint 2010 running on Windows 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2012.  I can't update to any of the server packs because the collection backup from the hosting company wasn't done on SharePoint 2010 with any service pack.  We're going from SharePoint 2010 Foundation (no service packs, base install from original release in 2009) to SharePoint 2010 Enterprise (no service packs, base install from original release in 2009).  I'm running Restore-SPSite to restore the backup from our hosting company onto our new server.  I get two errors that don't tell me the real problem, just a generic problem.  I can't freakin stand generic error messages, they don't help anyone. 

I really can't stand empty logs.  Every log I find doesn't give me any information on why I am getting generic error messages.  I have been at this for 4 days now, and have gotten nowhere.  Every blog, forum post, article I read to try to figure out where the problem is doesn't.  They all assume at least service pack 1 is installed (and neglect to say so adding to my frustration), and then don't cover the problem with good enough instructions for a noob to follow.

The first error message is Restore-SPSite : Access Denied. You do not have permission to perform this action or access this resource.  Um...what resource?  What permission is needed?  Where is the real error message logged so I can easily fix the problem?  All the logs I know of don't say anything.  I would really love to shoot the managers and programmers at Microsoft for leaving such a stupid generic message with no means to finding out what is being denied.  The message shows up after 5 minutes of the command doing nothing except jacking up my install.

I make sure the database user SharePoint is using has dbcreator permission.  I don't even know if I am doing that right, all I have listed is the group (what i guess) the user being used by SharePoint belongs to.

After setting the permission, I decide to see if I can restore the collection.  Instead of waiting 5 minutes, I am immediately greeted by a different error message: Restore-SPSite : The operation that you are attempting to perform cannot be complete successfully.  No content databases in the web application were available to store your site collection.  The existing content databases may have reached the maximum number of site collections, or be set to read-only, or be offline, or may already contain a copy of this site collection.  Create another content database for the web application and try the operation again.

Um....NO!  Tell me what is really going on damn it!  So far the only way I can get the last message to piss off is to uninstall and reinstall SharePoint twice.  The first time SharePoint errors out upon install, requiring uninstall and reinstall again to get the install to go through all the way. 

Trying to avoid the second message when trying blind permission changes (thanks to the dumb ass programmers wasting my time with shitty error messages), I have tried the following with no success.

Deleted all of the sites listed in the Site table in the content database using SQL Server Management Studio.  I at least was able to figure that one out, at least one blog post was able to give straight dope on something for a change.

Copied the flat database files after initial install.  After the first error message, copy the flat files back.  SharePoint still thinks it can't restore the backup.

Copied the web files in wwwroot as well as the flat database files upon initial install.  The second error message still won't go away.

Update to SP1 thinking that will fix the permission problem and the content database problem.  NOT!  I get a message saying the backup can only be restored to Sharepoint version 14.0.xxxxxxx, or later. (the version I have installed, not the version used to make the backup).  Stupid programmer strikes again, not only is the minimum version number wrong, but SP1 won't restore backups made prior to sp1.  That's just plain ridiculously stupid.

I tried SP2 thinking the stupid programmer got a whooping from a manager who can actually manage.  Guess not, the manager is just as stupid.  Same ridiculously stupid version error message with the wrong version required in the message.

Thinking orphaned sites might be the problem since the restore doesn't do much, and the programmers for SharePoint are utter retards, I put myself in their heads and wondered how I can piss off the most people the easiest?  Simple, don't roll back changes on a botched restore, and not even give an option to do that.  I used stsadm -o databaserepair -url http://<URL_of_WindowsSharePointServices_Site&gt; -databasename <name of database that contains the orphan item> to get the list of orphaned sites, none are listed.  No help there.

No sites are listed in Central Admin, no help there.

Given I can't install SP1 or SP2, does anyone have any idea what to do to figure out what permission is needed, and then how to get around the second error message?