Greetings: I am trying to move our existing mail databases to new storage. In an effort to minimize downtime, I was going to create a new info store on the new storage, create a new mailbox store in the new info store and then just move mailboxes. Unfortunately, it looks like our version of Exchange (2003 Standard perhaps) doesn't allow for more than 1 mailbox store server-wide. Needless to say, this is preventing our plan from going forth. Yes, we know about dismount->move files -> remount. We were hoping to not have to go that route due to excessive downtime. Yes, I tried adding a second mail store to the existing info store - same result, not allowed. Is there a way to temporarily allow a second mail store to exist on this server so I can execute this move? Ron Gage

I am not sure what the reasoning you want to do this is but you are stuck with single SG + single DB since you are running on E03 STD version. If your environment is not huge you can Xmerge all e-mails to PST, delete the MB , create new MB and move PST files back into Exchange. As you can see this is still a lot of work (-: I would install Exchange 2010 and migrate the databases if possible, E210 will give you per SB=5DB ( database) Your only option takes the server DB offline; defrag it assuming you want to do this because of white space on your databases. If you have corruption issues, you are in trouble because repaired database is tent to get corrupted thus moving yours into new DB is recommended after repairing the DB. Good luck Ocd Comparison between Exchange Server 2003 Standard Edition and Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822440Oz Casey, Dedeal, Microsoft MVP - Exchange Server, MCITP (EMA), MCITP (EA), MCITP (SA) Visit smtp25.blogspot.com Visit Telnet25.wordpress.com This posting is provided AS-IS with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.

Another option is to perform an inplace upgrade from Exchange 2003 standard to Exchange 2003 enterprise. Run setup and perform a reinstall which will only check for files that it needs or needs to replace.James Chong MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+ Security+, Project+, ITIL msexchangetips.blogspot.com