Two thoughts, 1 Can the recovery storage group be on a different exchange server in the same organization. Ie can I back up server1 to tape then restore to a storage recovery group on server2, then duplicate back to my mailbox on server1 2 I'm sure I've read of people restoring their mailboxes to an alternate server then using Exmerge to move them back to the original server. How is this done it would seem that would create two mailboxes per user in the same organization which I believe is not allowed Lloyd -----Original Message----- From: Roger Mackenzie [mailto:r.mackenzie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 12:46 PM To: [ExchangeList] Subject: [exchangelist] RE: Testing a Full Exchange Backup http://www.MSExchange.org/ Lloyd, For complete disaster recovery practice you'll need to clone everything - though that's not too much in your situation. Likely all this could run on old kit except for the restore device. Just to test the backup you can use the recovery storage group and try duplicating your own mailbox back into the live service. A few words but a lot of work. Regards, Roger Mackenzie (Glasgow University) -----Original Message----- From: Lloyd Williams [mailto:Williams@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: 08 December 2005 17:33 To: [ExchangeList] Subject: [exchangelist] Testing a Full Exchange Backup http://www.MSExchange.org/ I would like to be able to test my backups by restoring them to a second server and then basically logging on to that server to examine the result of the restore. This seems to be harder to do than it should be My first thought was to create a second server in my Exchange organization and restore the backup to that server. However it doesn't seem possible as it looks like exchange only supports one mailbox per user per organization. The restore would create a second mailbox per user (on the second server) in the organization. It doesn't seem this is supported. My second thought was to create a second organization within the same active directory tree. But it looks like that is not supported by Active Directory. My third idea would be to create a totally separate tree plus organization but then none of my users would have accounts in this directory tree to be able to access the mailboxes unless I cloned one of my active directory servers. So how does one do this, it would be nice to be able to restore to another working server, then in the event of a disaster, one could do this much practiced restore, ( for real) and then just switch IP's on the server and be back in business How do other people test their backups? PS I have Exchange Enterprise 2003 on Standard Server 2003, in a single tree Active Directory setup Lloyd ------------------------------------------------------ List Archives: http://www.webelists.com/cgi/lyris.pl?enter=exchangelist Exchange Newsletters: http://www.msexchange.org/pages/newsletter.asp ------------------------------------------------------ Visit TechGenix.com for more information about our other sites: http://www.techgenix.com ------------------------------------------------------ You are currently subscribed to this MSExchange.org Discussion List as: r.mackenzie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe visit http://www.webelists.com/cgi/lyris.pl?enter=exchangelist Report abuse to info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ------------------------------------------------------ List Archives: http://www.webelists.com/cgi/lyris.pl?enter=exchangelist Exchange Newsletters: http://www.msexchange.org/pages/newsletter.asp ------------------------------------------------------ Visit TechGenix.com for more information about our other sites: http://www.techgenix.com ------------------------------------------------------ You are currently subscribed to this MSExchange.org Discussion List as: williams@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe visit http://www.webelists.com/cgi/lyris.pl?enter=exchangelist Report abuse to info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx