Replicating an Exchange 5.5 server to new hardware

[breid7718]

My Exchange 5.5 server has 2 hdds in its 5 hdd raid that have failed and I cannot find replacements. This is an NT 4 machine with no tape drive, only a network connection. This machine also serves as the internal DNS server and WINS server.

 

I have a machine with similar resources (a bit more memory and hdd space) and I've configured the drive letters to match partitions on the current Exchange server. I would like to back up the current Exchange server and restore it to the new hardware; back up the original, shut it down, restore to the replacement, power it up and everything work as it did before.

 

I have tried going through the process of setting the machine up as an additional Exchange server and moving mailboxes, but I ran into a number of problems getting users moved across - particularly Mac clients. I really feel the best way to do this is just replicate the old machine on the new hardware. There does not appear to be any data corruption, so it's really just a matter of cleanly duplicating the machine.

 

Can anyone give me some tips on the best way to go about that?

[nekr0phage]

Hi Bill,

 

One thing to note for restoring Exchange to a different machine: You will basically need to trick Retrospect into thinking it's restoring to the same server. Unfortunately I'm not sure exactly what this would entail with a 5.5 installation.

 

Hope this helps a bit.