fixing a bad oracle install

We were hitting shared memory errors. Googled it and this is common when an Oracle install is wrong. I looked into it and the kernel parameters were never set(I didnt do the install). This is in Redhat 5.0 with Oracle 10.2.0.1. Set the kernetl parameters and stepped through the install to make sure ulimit, etc... was correct. Started up the DB and got the same error.

ORA-01034: ORACLE not available
ORA-27101: shared memory realm does not exist Linux-x86_64 Error: 2: No such file or directory

So I shut the DB down. did an export for a quick backup(its just development data). Uninstaled the software and then reinstalled.

started up the DB and had the same problem. I had to make a new database and import the data to it to start over. I am ok for now, but for future reference, is any DB created with a bad install hosed and I have to make a new DB? The new DB works fine so far with the imported data.

--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l