Re: Need advice on manually editing database

So, I was hasty and stupid and tried to solve some problems I'd been having by wiping my forum from the server, reinstalling SMF, and importing the database. Unfortunately I didn't uninstall all the plugins before I did the database export on the old one, and apparently even those that I did uninstall I forgot to remove the data so they left tables behind. Of course, this led to problems when I tried to put them back.

I think I figured out the fix, but I want to make sure what I'm doing isn't going to cause more problems down the road. On a test version of the forum (set up on a different server. I had problems with repair_settings changing paths on ALL SMF installs across the server when I was trying to run it in a separate folder on the main server) I went in to the database and dropped all tables for plugins. Since there are no plugins installed the test forum seems to be running fine, but obviously that's without any real traffic, or people poking into all the dark corners.

Will this work? Is there something major that I'm missing and that will come around to bite me in the butt in the long run if I use this method on the main forum?

Oh, I also had every table in the database replicated with a backup_ heading. Is it ok to delete those as well?