Re: Odd Installation Question

"Watson Davis" <watson_at_watsonmusic.com> wrote in message news:BD59C31AA25F7E44.620B00952B8A5A66.0698BC6877C5978D_at_lp.airnews.net...
> I'm supposed to create an Oracle instance on this one machine (Sun,
> Solaris). We've already got one instance in Oracle 7.3.4 on this
> machine and the instance I'm supposed to create is in Oracle 8.1.5.
> The guy that installed both versions of the software had never
> installed Oracle prior to this.
>
> We've got a setup similar to this on another machine (that we're
> having to migrate off for various and sundry reasons.)
>
> The 8.1.5 version doesn't have an orainst directory. The guy swears
> up and down that 8.1.5 is completely and successfully installed. I've
> never seen an ORACLE_HOME without an orainst subdirectory before. I
> think he screwed up and probably needs to re-install 8.1.5
>
> BUT
>
> Can I use the orainst in the 7.3.4 Oracle directory with my
> $ORACLE_HOME set to the 8.1.5 home and create a good 8.1.5 instance?
> Or will everything be horribly mucked up if I do this?
>
> Watson

Yup, it wouldn't work also.
The guy installing the sw didn't install the installer. You'd better reinstall or you are going to be in trouble at some stage. However you may know that both the versions you are running are desupported so you are already in trouble (as you seem to have relatively inexperienced employees)
You also may find in the documentation (I know most people don't care to read that, but rather rely on other sources), that Oracle 8i comes with a database creation assistant with the executable name dbca If that doesn't suit you, you definitely need to use the 8i svrmgrl and issue a manual create database statement.

Regards

--
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA

to reply remove '-verwijderdit' from my e-mail address