Re: cannot delete datafile after droping tablespace for Oracle9i

Your patch level would be useful too. What do you get if you try the following, as SYSTEM, at a SQL*Plus prompt?

select banner from v$version;

Linux does indeed handle file-locking very differently to Windows. I suspect that you would be able to delete the file at the O/S level. As a matter of interest, what does the following query return on your system?

select name from v$datafile; Received on Tue Dec 06 2005 - 09:10:55 CST