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Re: Database backup of Oracle Raw Partition on NT with Arcserv?

From: Billy Verreynne <vslabs_at_onwe.co.za>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 15:56:10 +0200
Message-ID: <729gqj$gld$1@hermes.is.co.za>


Nonya Business wrote in message <36477855.352884771_at_news.vnet.net>...
>Our DBA, Ed, has decided to put our database on raw partitions. This
>is good for almost everything except my backups!
>
>How does one back up a raw partition with Arcserv for Windows NT 4.0?

No idea at all about Arcserv. There are no drive letters assigned to raw devices. Not on NT, nor on Unix (i.e. DOS/NT driver letter equates to a mounted filesystem on Unix).

Here's some info on how to use physical device names in NT from the CreateFile() API call:
· The caller must have administrative privileges for the operation to succeed on a hard disk drive.
· The lpFileName string should be of the form \\.\PHYSICALDRIVEx to open the hard disk x. Hard disk numbers start at zero. For example: String Meaning
\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE2 Obtains a handle to the third physical drive on the user's computer.
· The lpFileName string should be \\.\x: to open a floppy drive x or a partition x on a hard disk. For example: String Meaning
\\.\A: Obtains a handle to drive A on the user's computer. \\.\C: Obtains a handle to drive C on the user's computer.

The way I read it, \\.\ on NT compares to Unix's /etc/dev/ - all you need to suffix is the name of the device.

Maybe the easiest way to get a list of device names is to ask your DBA to do a select from V$DATAFILE and give you a list of datafile (or device) names. This should correspond to the actual NT device name. Oh yes, and remember to add the control file, logs and stuff to the backup too. Not a good idea to only backup the datafiles and nothing else... :-)

Hopes this helps a bit.

regards,
Billy Received on Tue Nov 10 1998 - 07:56:10 CST

Original text of this message

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