Re: Backup & Restore

>> Now the part 2 - recovery. How do I recover from the backed up file?
 Say I
>> backed up as "project.ora_080601_1530". If I want to restore this
 data on
>> 10th August, how do I do this?

Here's what you do :

shutdown the database (shutdown or shutdown immediate, not shutdown abort)
Take a full cold backup of all the datafiles, controlfiles, redo logs, init.ora and (if used) password files - a cold backup in other words. copy the file 'project.ora_080601_1530' over the existing 'project.ora' mount the database (startup mount)
type 'recover database' and Oracle will then ask for one of the archived logfiles to start bringing project.ora back up to date. If the archived logs are in the correct place, type auto and Oracle will recover the database by itself.
If they are not, then you need to copy them back to the correct location, and then type auto.
(The correct place is the location given in the initSID.ora file under LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST) when Oracle finishes, open the database.

Have fun, and test it out on a non-essential database to make sure that you know & understand what you are doing.

You might be wondering about the full cold backup of a 'broken' database - well, if you really muck it up during the recovery, at least you can restore everything back to how it was and persue some other recovery strategy. If you don't have the cold backup, you are up that famous creek without a canoe never mind a paddle :o)

Regards,
Norman.

Norman Dunbar		EMail:	NDunbar_at_LynxFinancialSystems.co.uk
Database/Unix administrator	Phone:	0113 289 6265
Lynx Financial Systems Ltd.	Fax:	0113 201 7265
			URL:	http://www.LynxFinancialSystems.com
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