The database schema is too old to perform this operation in this SharePoint cluster.

Have you ever received the following error while trying to reconnect or restore a SQL Server database in SharePoint? The database schema is too old to perform this operation in this SharePoint cluster. This is a little mis-leading in my opinion. It is talking about a version mismatch between SharePoint Configuration database and the database you are trying to restore or reconnect to SharePoint. This should apply to both Windows SharePoint Services v2 (WSS) and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (SPS), though the names of the databases may be different. Let's assume your content database is called xxx_SITE where xxx is the name of your SharePoint site if you are using SPS. If you are using WSS you are looking for your Content database. If you open up SQL Server Management Studio 2005 or Query Analyzer you can run the following two queries. You will see that there is a mismatch on the version numbers. select Version from xxx_SITE.dbo.SystemVersion select SchemaVersion from SPS01_Config_db.dbo.Globals What this means is that you have a different version of SharePoint installed than the version that was installed when SharePoint was backed up. I have found on the web documentation that says it has to be the same service pack level, but my experiences has told me that the patches have the be the same as well. Here if you look under the comments for one by Andrew Woodward you'll see he also had the same experience. This site seems to have a good list of what the different versions are in relation to patches. Once you have the same version of SharePoint installed again everything should restore fine. If you are not sure what the previous version was you can get it from the content database (xxx_SITE in this example) using the above query.