Hi - I'm having a similar problem. I'm trying to restore a sql2000 master db to a sql2005 installation on a totally different machine. What is the correct procedure? Both the sql2000 and sql2005 are on MS cluster. I start SQL 2005 in single user mode (sqlservr.exe -c -m) then try to restore the .bak of the sql2000 master db that I have. I get an error message that says "....the backup set holds a backup of a database other than the existing 'master' database." Can you please advise me? Thanks.