make sure that you choose the database and all the tables while exporting through phpmyadmin. And it will works.

and you can restore it either through phpmyadmin if it is small or use bigdump script to do that.

For ssh

Open an SSH connection to your server and browse to the location where you wish to store the backed up database file. Run the following command to back up the database:

Code: 
mysqldump -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD --default-character-set=utf8 DATABASE_NAME | gzip > NAME_OF_FILE.GZ
Be sure to substitute USERNAME and PASSWORD with the correct database username/password values. Also be sure to substitute DATABASE_NAME with your newly created database name and NAME_OF_FILE.GZ with the full name of the database backup GZ file.

Open an FTP connection to your server and browse to the location where this file is stored. Transfer it to your computer.

If you need you can hire me to . I can help you.