Can not logon to Word Press admin panel

Below is a synopsis of the issues:

I was having problems with my hosting provider and resolving issues with my web site not being up. I decided to change providers. I logon to Cpanel and performed a “full back up” of my site. I then contacted my new provider and they asked me to ftp the full back up file to my public directory and they would perform the restore for me. The restore was completed and the web site appears to being working correctly and all old posts and comments appear to be OK.

The problem is both my wife and I are admins and we can no longer logon to the site to access the WordPress admin panel. Also when I first installed WP on the first hosting site my logon link was http://mydomain.com/wp/wp-admin/
Now when I use that link it re-directs to http://mydomain.com/wp/wp-login.php instead …. then I use the correct user name and password and the return page states:

“We can’t seem to find what you’re looking for!” and I can never get access to the admin panel.

I have both FTP access to the files and I have access to the MySQL database that the WordPress install created.

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What I have tried:

* The back end MySQL database is accessible … so I have tried resetting my admin password as per this link http://codex.wordpress.org/Resetting_Your_Password using phpMyAdmin … and still doesn’t give me access.
* I have tried the “lost your password” on the wp-login.php and the email worked to send me the verifying link, and then after clicking on the verifying link a new password is sent to the registered email … that also is not working. For some reason even though I can see me as an admin user in the user database it is not authenticating me and giving me access to the admin panel.

It does not seem to be an issue with with the user/password …. it seems the security logon system WP uses are not connecting to the DB to grant me access. Also this re-direct is strange …. when I installed WP my install confirm told me the admin address is: http://mydomain.com/wp/wp-admin/ but if you attempt to use the link or copy and paste it it re-directs to http://mydomain.com/wp/wp-login.php ….. so I am wondering if that is a part of this problem.

The server is running:

Word Press version 2.6.5 (Control Panel is telling me there is a WP upgrade available for version 3.03 … wondering if upgrading would help or mess things up more)?
Apache version 2.2.17
PHP version 5.3.4
MySQL version 5.0.91-community

Thanks in advance for any advice I can try.

Steve