I am trying to take a live/private development site and build a working copy of it on my local computer using MAMP and localhost so I can try ajaxing the site.

I've made working copies of sites using backup/restore in the past, with success - but the current site I'm working on gives me an error when I try and restore from the backup.

mysql error: [2006: MySQL server has gone away] in EXECUTE("INSERT INTO PageStatistics VALUES

followed by a ton of dates formatted like this: 1,1,'2012-04-12'

I have seen this error code on the forums before, but with only the advice of contacting the host. Since I am trying to use MAMP and localhost - I am guessing that means I need to contact me!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here is my workflow:
Install fresh copy of C5 on my local server, without sample content, with default everything.
Clear cache on current site, then backup the site.
Download blocks, packages, and themes folders and place them in the local install
Download files folder contents, but just the folders with numbers, not the cache, thumbnails, trash, ... etc. folders
Put the downloaded folders into the local copy
Create backups folder in files folder and then download/place the backup file
Restore from backup in the local site

What happens:
I get the previously mentioned error - but the theme is applied, all files are available in the file manager(just need to be rescanned), and all custom attributes are available.
What doesn't work: no pages are created - there are a lot (currently 199, using over 1000 images), so it be great if I don't have to manually add all of the existing pages/content again