Steve Jones - Editor (8/11/2010)
The backup file isn't changed. What happens when you do the restore is that the mdf/ldf/ndf are created as sparse files. All reads from these files are redirected to the backup file, while the writes go to the sparse files. So the backup file is intact, but your changes are recorded, similar to a database snapshot.
Thanks for the clarification. I take it that in order to remove the restored database you DROP DATABASE just like anything else.
So your backup checkup of doing the fast restore and DBCC does not go far enough, IMHO. One should go a step farther and use SQL Compare to match the objects and the contents. Then you can say that your backups work.
ATBCharles Kincaid