XADM: How To Verify Exchange Online Backups

To verify that the Microsoft Exchange Server online backup contains a usable copy of the database, perform the following steps:

1. Perform an online backup.
2. Set up a test server and restore the backup.
3. Stop the Exchange services.
4. For Exchange Server version 4.0 and 5.0, defrag the databases and verify that no errors are reported when you run the following commands:
   
   
   • edbutil /d /ispriv
   • edbutil /d /ispub
   • edbutil /d /ds
   For Exchange Server version 5.5, perform an integrity check of the databases and verify that no errors are reported when you run the following commands:
   
   
   • eseutil /g /ispriv
   • eseutil /g /ispub
   • eseutil /g /ds
5. Restart the services.

If the services start at this point, the database is usable and contains no errors.