Database restore without redo logs.

[noksa]

Hi experts! Can you help me with the following?
I have Oracle8i running on Win2000 machine.
Upon starting of db, the message pops up saying that system01.dbf needs media recovery. The db is running in noarchivelog mode while online redo logs seem to be intact. I have yesterday's cold db backup but without corresponding controlfile. I'm planning to overwrite today's datafiles with yesterday's. How can I roll the current controlfile backward (SCN?) for it to admit the yesterday's data files? Thanks for any help!

 

[SantaMufasa]

Noksa,

Even if you are in NOARCHIVELOG mode, you can still succcessfully recover the database if the RECOVER process does not need to go back any further than the current contents of your on-line redo logs. Therefore, the first thing you should attempt is a database recover. For this, do the following:

1) STARTUP MOUNT
2) RECOVER DATABASE (if you are lucky, the recover will be successful; if you are unlucky, it will tell you that the recovery was unsuccessful since it needs data from archive logs that do not exist.)
3) If recovery was successful, then "ALTER DATABASE OPEN;"

IF the recovery was unsuccessful, then you need to go back to your last full backup. That last full backup must have all three sets of files (control files, on-line redo log files, and database datafiles) that are consistent as of the same checkpoint.

Let us know what you find out.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA @ 01:48 (19Mar04) UTC (aka "GMT" and "Zulu"), 18:48 (18Mar04) Mountain Time)