@Damian_S You cannot delete and recreate a hadoop cluster in this manner.  The data in the metastore is very specific to the previous installation.   A proper migration will back up the required artifacts from the original cluster, and migrate them to a new existing ambari cluster that has already completed the initial cluster installation.   ... View more

@Damian_S  Yes, I always use mysql/mariadb for hive metastore.  If you have the original data you can you just move it to the new location?  This should be part of your migration steps regardless of the backend for the metastore. ... View more