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From: Susan Wilson <sooz@pobox.com>
Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle.server
Subject: Re: Copying to a test database
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 1998 09:41:40 -0700
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The easiest (hack) way to do this is, ... carefully ...
Copy all the datafiles that make sense (i.e.. SYSTEM, RBS, and DATA,
redologs) for the data you want in your test instance.  Create a new
initSID.ora and configSID.ora file for the test instance.  Make sure
there are no pre-existing control files for the test instance.  Startup
in mount mode, and issue the 'create controlfile' command -- using the
new locations of the datafiles, etc that you copied.  You should be off
an running.  You can get a "template" dcl for creating the controlfile
by issuing the 'backup controlfile to trace' command from the production
instance. 

This may take a little tweaking, but it's fast.
- sooz

DENNIS WILLIAMS wrote:
> 
> I am setting up some test databases and my users have asked me to move all
> the data from production. Someone told me that you could simply copy the
> Oracle files to the test instance, but they didn't know the specifics of
> how this was accomplished. Has anyone done this? What are the restrictions
> - must I copy the entire instance, or is there a way to do a datafile at a
> time?
> 
> Dennis Williams
> DBA
> Lifetouch, Inc.
> 612-826-5543
> dwilliams@lifetouch.com