Fred,
Issue's you're experiencing are independant in BE world. So you may not find solutions to all your queries in one article/document. Example: Unable to start Backup Exec services and Trying to know how to access the bkf files located on an offsite machine. (but i certainly understand the frustration here!)
In order to access those files located offsite, you will first need to get those files local to the media server, create a b2d folder targeting that location, inventory the device and re-build the catalogs. Once cataloging is complete, you should be able to access the content stored within those bkf files using Backup Exec restore job.
Note: In my comment above, "How to create a backup to disk folder" or "Unable to create a backup to disk folder" could be ONE issue on which articles are available with solutions
and
"Catalogs failing" or "How to create a catalog job" etc is another issue on which there will be a different set of documentations availble.
similar for Inventory issues as well.. Because these situations are so environment specific it is very difficult to have solutions for everything available in one single document.