Thank you both very much.

for whatever reason when i backed up the wallets (file>backup wallet) what was created and visible was a single file that was not a .dat file. later when looking at the back up on a windows computer i did find a folder called .trash and in it was the .dat file for the wallet i backed up up "walletname".dat. so at least i know what im looking for now.

this is all in ubuntu, which i am completely new to, so perhaps it was hidden folder which can be made visible with a setting change. either way, i think i have my plan now and will know how to test to make sure it works.

one last question that is a bit different. the only way to have one private key/public key pair for a particular wallet is to only have a single receive address, correct? i plan to set up a temporary wallet and then a hodl wallet for long term saving. for the hodl wallet, only having one address and one public/private key pair would be ok and simpler to keep track of if my short and medium term plan is to only fill the wallet and not spend, yes?

thanks again for the responses.