diff --git a/CLAUDE.md b/CLAUDE.md
index 06d2e9e..254ae6e 100644
--- a/CLAUDE.md
+++ b/CLAUDE.md
@@ -66,9 +66,12 @@ The repository includes comprehensive migration tools:
 
 - `scripts/migrate.sh` - Main migration script that:
   - Backs up existing Ghost installation
+  - Automatically tries Ghost's database credentials first
+  - Only prompts for alternative credentials if needed
+  - Uses `--no-tablespaces` flag to avoid PROCESS privilege requirements
   - Converts config.json to environment variables
   - Preserves content and database
-  - Creates recovery script
+  - Creates recovery script with clear restoration instructions
   - Sets up Docker Compose environment
 
 - `scripts/config-to-env.js` - Converts Ghost JSON config to .env format
diff --git a/scripts/migrate.sh b/scripts/migrate.sh
index fac8cae..3cf2f84 100644
--- a/scripts/migrate.sh
+++ b/scripts/migrate.sh
@@ -52,10 +52,17 @@ cleanup() {
 
     if [[ $exit_code -ne 0 && -f "$RECOVERY_SCRIPT" ]]; then
         echo ""
-        echo "ERROR: Migration failed!"
+        echo "════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════"
+        echo "❌ MIGRATION FAILED!"
+        echo "════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════"
+        echo ""
+        echo "Don't worry - your data is safe!"
+        echo ""
         echo "To restore your original Ghost installation, run:"
         echo "  bash $RECOVERY_SCRIPT"
         echo ""
+        echo "Need help? Check the migration logs above for error details."
+        echo "════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════"
     fi
 
     exit $exit_code
@@ -66,6 +73,7 @@ trap cleanup EXIT INT TERM
 
 # Create recovery script
 create_recovery_script() {
+    local service_name="$1"
     cat > "$RECOVERY_SCRIPT" << EOF
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 # Recovery script generated by Ghost migration on $(date)
@@ -79,15 +87,19 @@ echo "Restoring original Ghost installation..."
 docker compose down 2>/dev/null || true
 
 # Re-enable and start the original Ghost service
-systemctl enable "${ghost_service_name}"
-systemctl start "${ghost_service_name}"
-
-echo "Original Ghost installation has been restored."
-echo "You can check the status with: systemctl status ${ghost_service_name}"
+if [[ -n "${service_name}" ]]; then
+    systemctl enable "${service_name}" 2>/dev/null || true
+    systemctl start "${service_name}" 2>/dev/null || true
+    echo "Original Ghost installation has been restored."
+    echo "You can check the status with: systemctl status ${service_name}"
+else
+    echo "Note: Ghost service was not yet stopped, so no restoration needed."
+    echo "Your original installation should still be running."
+fi
 EOF
 
     chmod +x "$RECOVERY_SCRIPT"
-    echo "Recovery script created at: $RECOVERY_SCRIPT"
+    echo "✓ Recovery script created at: $RECOVERY_SCRIPT"
 }
 
 # Validate MySQL connection
@@ -188,6 +200,21 @@ migrate_content() {
     echo "✓ Content migration completed"
 }
 
+# Test if we can dump database with given credentials
+test_mysql_dump() {
+    local host=$1
+    local database=$2
+    local user=$3
+    local password=$4
+
+    # Try a minimal dump to test permissions
+    if mysqldump --no-tablespaces --no-data -h"$host" -u"$user" -p"$password" "$database" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+        return 0
+    else
+        return 1
+    fi
+}
+
 # Export and import database
 migrate_database() {
     local mysql_host
@@ -197,9 +224,38 @@ migrate_database() {
 
     echo "Exporting database from $mysql_host..."
 
-    # Export database
-    if ! mysqldump -h"$mysql_host" -u"$mysql_user" -p"$mysql_password" "$mysql_database" > "$TEMP_SQL_FILE"; then
+    # Export database with proper error handling
+    local dump_output
+    local dump_status
+    dump_output=$(mysqldump --no-tablespaces -h"$mysql_host" -u"$mysql_user" -p"$mysql_password" "$mysql_database" 2>&1 > "$TEMP_SQL_FILE")
+    dump_status=$?
+
+    # Check for errors in output (mysqldump may return 0 even with some errors)
+    if [[ $dump_status -ne 0 ]] || [[ "$dump_output" =~ "Error:" ]]; then
+        echo ""
         echo "ERROR: Failed to export database"
+        if [[ "$dump_output" =~ "PROCESS privilege" ]]; then
+            echo ""
+            echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
+            echo "The MySQL user '$mysql_user' needs the PROCESS privilege."
+            echo ""
+            echo "To fix this, connect to MySQL as a privileged user and run:"
+            echo "  GRANT PROCESS ON *.* TO '$mysql_user'@'%';"
+            echo "  FLUSH PRIVILEGES;"
+            echo ""
+            echo "Or retry with a user that has sufficient privileges (e.g., root)."
+            echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
+        elif [[ -n "$dump_output" ]]; then
+            echo "Error details: $dump_output"
+        fi
+        exit 1
+    fi
+
+    # Verify the dump file exists and has content
+    if [[ ! -f "$TEMP_SQL_FILE" ]] || [[ ! -s "$TEMP_SQL_FILE" ]]; then
+        echo ""
+        echo "ERROR: Database dump file is empty or missing"
+        echo "This might indicate insufficient disk space or permissions issues."
         exit 1
     fi
 
@@ -286,8 +342,12 @@ main() {
     # Get database configuration
     local mysql_host
     local mysql_database
+    local ghost_mysql_user
+    local ghost_mysql_password
     mysql_host=$(jq -r < "${current_location}/config.production.json" '.database.connection.host')
     mysql_database=$(jq -r < "${current_location}/config.production.json" '.database.connection.database')
+    ghost_mysql_user=$(jq -r < "${current_location}/config.production.json" '.database.connection.user')
+    ghost_mysql_password=$(jq -r < "${current_location}/config.production.json" '.database.connection.password')
 
     # Check disk space
     echo ""
@@ -321,23 +381,52 @@ main() {
     echo "✓ Disk space check passed"
     echo ""
 
-    # Get MySQL credentials and validate
-    read -rp "MySQL user for database export (default: root): " mysql_user
-    mysql_user=${mysql_user:-root}
+    # Try Ghost's own credentials first
+    echo "Testing database export with Ghost's credentials..."
+    if test_mysql_dump "$mysql_host" "$mysql_database" "$ghost_mysql_user" "$ghost_mysql_password"; then
+        echo "✓ Ghost's credentials have sufficient privileges"
+        mysql_user="$ghost_mysql_user"
+        mysql_password="$ghost_mysql_password"
+    else
+        echo "Ghost's database user doesn't have sufficient privileges for export."
+        echo "Please provide credentials for a MySQL user with dump privileges."
+        echo ""
 
-    # Get password securely
-    echo -n "MySQL password for ${mysql_user}: "
-    read -rs mysql_password
-    echo ""
+        # Get MySQL credentials and validate
+        read -rp "MySQL user for database export (default: root): " mysql_user
+        mysql_user=${mysql_user:-root}
 
-    # Validate connection
-    if ! validate_mysql_connection "$mysql_host" "$mysql_database" "$mysql_user" "$mysql_password"; then
-        echo "Please check your MySQL credentials and try again."
-        exit 1
+        # Get password securely
+        echo -n "MySQL password for ${mysql_user}: "
+        read -rs mysql_password
+        echo ""
+
+        # Validate connection
+        if ! validate_mysql_connection "$mysql_host" "$mysql_database" "$mysql_user" "$mysql_password"; then
+            echo ""
+            echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
+            echo "Could not connect to MySQL database."
+            echo ""
+            echo "Please verify:"
+            echo "  • MySQL service is running"
+            echo "  • Credentials are correct"
+            echo "  • User has access from this host"
+            echo "  • Database name is correct"
+            echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
+            exit 1
+        fi
+
+        # Test dump permissions
+        if ! test_mysql_dump "$mysql_host" "$mysql_database" "$mysql_user" "$mysql_password"; then
+            echo ""
+            echo "ERROR: The provided user doesn't have sufficient privileges for database export."
+            echo "Please ensure the user has the necessary privileges or try a different user."
+            exit 1
+        fi
     fi
 
-    # Create recovery script
-    create_recovery_script
+    # Create recovery script (with empty service name since we haven't stopped anything yet)
+    create_recovery_script ""
 
     # Final confirmation before stopping Ghost
     echo ""
@@ -365,8 +454,17 @@ main() {
     # Stop Ghost service
     echo ""
     echo "Stopping Ghost service..."
-    systemctl stop "$ghost_service_name"
-    systemctl disable "$ghost_service_name"
+
+    # Update recovery script with actual service name before stopping
+    create_recovery_script "$ghost_service_name"
+
+    if ! systemctl stop "$ghost_service_name"; then
+        echo "ERROR: Failed to stop Ghost service"
+        echo "Please check: systemctl status $ghost_service_name"
+        exit 1
+    fi
+
+    systemctl disable "$ghost_service_name" 2>/dev/null || true
     echo "✓ Ghost service stopped"
 
     # Migrate content