Lost connection to MySQL server at 'reading initial communication packet', system error: 0 with windows
Figured it out. 'root' was pointing to the root of the local machine and the root user on the remote machine was pointing to itself. So I had it connect to an admin user and it connected fine with no errors. Thanks for for the responses and help guys.
http://www.heidisql.com/forum.php?t=10835
Note to self: When setting up SSH, you MUST set the following option in /etc/ssh/sshd_config:
AllowTcpForwarding yes
If you don't, then your packets will be silently dropped at the server. This results in the above error message.