Re: Losing control files

It's a bit late now, but to save you future pain it's a very good idea to mirror your control files and log files. From memory I think this is specified when you create the database but there may be a nifty way of adding it as an afterthought.

We use Oracle to software mirror redo log and control files to different logical disks as well as having hardware mirroring in place storing them on different physical spindles (so in total we have them on four different disks). It's a bit over the top, but the control file is relatively tiny and as you have found out, you're toast without it.

There is a way to rebuild a control file involving mounting the database and generating a SQL script but I can't remember how exactly off the top of my head and I don't think it would have been much help in your situation. This technique is more useful for renaming your database or bringing it up minus a corrupted datafile. Received on Thu Dec 19 1996 - 00:00:00 CST