How to tell companion influence level in KotOR 2

The second game doesn't follow on directly from the first - most of the characters are different, with some familiar faces and places. So there's little sense in importing a save game, in that respect.

According to this FAQ, there is no way to import a save game from the first game.

edit as for your other question:

The Star Forge was slowly consuming mass and energy from the star, providing the materials for thousands of ships. It also drew upon the darker side of the Force in many ways. more information here

Bao Dur is a pretty unorthodox character and requires a little thinking outside the box.

First off, on the question of Armor: Forget force powers, give him the heaviest armor he can wear. Jedi Guardian's don't have a particularly wide variety of Force Powers available to them anyway, so you should easily be able to tailor a list to his limitations. Force Deflection and Redirection are obvious choices, as are Force Push, Energy Resistance, Heal, Stasis/Stun, and maybe even dip into the Dark side for powers like the Wound or Fear lines.

As for weapons, you're right in your intuition that Unarmed is probably the way to go - especially if you can hold back his level to 6 before switching him over to a Jedi, as his Shield Breaker ability will more than make up for the lost damage to a few levels. That said, if you need him to be a skilled tech specialist, you can do okay giving him a single lightsaber and focusing on feats like Dueling and Toughness - at that point, he's basically a tank, and you'll want to emphasize his survivability. This works best in combination with characters that can employ stealth to get enemies to focus fire on Bao-Dur, before striking from behind. I still wouldn't take him past level 10 or 12 as a tech at an absolute maximum though. Skill points aren't that hard to come by, and you always have T3 to handle that stuff in a pinch.