Kelli In the competition between you and your boss, I would award you the Gold Star, recovering an Exchange server is not just a case of restore to a new server and away you go, it needs to be planned a bit better than that. You would need to install Exchange 2000 using exactly the same name as the old server, make sure all your Administrative Groups, Storage Groups, Stores etc are named exactly the same as the old server (so documentation is very important), then you can restore the data. Does the server also run AD, if it does that of course would add to the disaster recovery plan. I would recommend you read through this document: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q326052 If you messaging system is critical (as it is in most companies) you may want to look at implementing a Clustered solutions. Hope this helps Mark Fugatt MCSE, MCT, Microsoft Exchange MVP Pentech Office Solutions Inc www.4mcts.com Tel: 585 586 3890 Fax: 585 249 0316 Cell: 585 576 4750 Visit www.msexchange.org for valuable information about Microsoft Exchange -----Original Message----- From: Kelli Irwin [mailto:kirwin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 2:05 PM To: [ExchangeList] Subject: [exchangelist] Exchange Rebuild/recovery http://www.MSExchange.org/ Hi All, Quick Question. We are running Exchange 2000. My Boss and I disagree on a point. He says he heard that if our Exchange Server would completely "bite the dust".... as in, be destroyed or maybe even just the Hard Drive go south... that we could recover by just bringing in another computer running Windows 2000 Server and restoring all the appropriate files from our backups. I say we would have to build another Exchange Server by installing Exchange 2000 and then configuring it. We then could recover our mailboxes etc. from the backup files. Who is correct? What files SHOULD I be backing up? Are there existing articles on the best way to back up Exchange. Should I be running some sort of "mirror" drive? How are y'all handling "disaster recovery" for Exchange? Thanks in advance, Kelli Irwin ------------------------------------------------------ List Archives: http://www.webelists.com/cgi/lyris.pl?enter=exchangelist Exchange Newsletters: http://www.msexchange.org/pages/newsletter.asp Exchange FAQ: http://www.msexchange.org/pages/larticle.asp?type=FAQ ------------------------------------------------------ ISA Server Resource Site: http://www.isaserver.org Windows Security Resource Site: http://www.windowsecurity.com/ Windows 2000/NT Fax Solutions: http://www.ntfaxfaq.com ------------------------------------------------------ You are currently subscribed to this MSExchange.org Discussion List as: mark@xxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send a blank email to $subst('Email.Unsub')