asked on

oracle emergency, seeking oracle expert

We are running oracle on a ERP system. We had a hardware failure that resulted in requireing a full restrore from backup of drive d: that holds the oracle database. We are currently running a raid 1(c:\) raid 5(d:\) I was told by the MRP company that we do buissness with that there would be no problems in doing the restore of the d:\ drive. I was also told as soon as the restore was finished that all was needed was a simple reboot and oracle would be up and going no problem. Well It didn't work that way. After restoring the d:\ drive the oracle services are failing with the error
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Could not start the OracleServiceORCL service on Local Computer.
Error 3: The system cannot find the path specified.
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This error is also duplicated in the event viewer.
Let me just say that I know nothing about Oracle. So Any information you need about this oracle setup I will supply you if you ask for it. I will be up all night trying to trouble shoot something I know nothing about so please anybody that knows Oracle I could use a hand on this one Bigtime. Also I will be glad to reward anyone who helps me to solve this as many points as they want.

Thanks

baonguyen1

OK, so fisrt try is to start the Oracle manually:

1. From command prompt, issue:
C:\set ORACLE_SID=<SID>
with SID is ORCL in your case I think
2. Then:
C:\sqlplus /nolog
SQL>
3.Now logon as sysdba:
-If you are running 8i and below, issue
SQL>connect internal
or
SQL>connect / as ssydba
-If you are running 9i, issue:
SQL>connect / as sysdba
or
SQL>connect sys/<password> as sysdba
4. Start the instance:
SQL>startup pfile=<your init.ora file>
For example:
SQL>startup pfile=D:\oraadmin\pfile\init.ora

Now the database is up and running. We can check to see why the service does not start the db later. Let me know if you have any other problem.

Hope this helps

illtbagu

ASKER

Thank you sir. I feel really stupid not knowing a thing about what you are having me do. For all I know you could be having me issue commands to the hubble space telescope :)

Could you just briefly in one sentence each explain what I am doing for numbers 1-4

Here is the last email contact I had with the ERP tech support people.
---------------------------------
I spoke with XXXXX and besides the cold oracle backup, they do a system backup every night. They will try to restore from the system tape, to get the system going, but likely we will have to copy the files from the cold backup back to their orginal directories.
---------------------------------
What is your opinion?

baonguyen1

Hi, the number 1-4 saying that you can try to start the database manually. By this way I want to ensure that your restore process went correctly.

I'm not sure what your man did but if they restore the whole system it should include the datafiles, redolog files, control files, init files... of the database. To be sure you have to check with them if they have restored all. Otherwise you have to restore the files from the coldbackup to the orginal directories as stated

You also need to ensure the tnsnames.ora , listener.ora (under %ORACLE_HOME\network\admin) are have been restored.

Let me know if you need more help

illtbagu

ASKER

This is really bad I have been checking out what was restored vs what existed before and there is missing some directories. After looking through veritas I am finding that even thought veritas said that it was doing a complete backup and none of the backups failed it seems that it was managing to miss some directories in the past few weeks when backing up. This is really scary.

I am going to keep this post open but here is some points (my way of saying thanks)
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20939612/thanks-for-the-help.html
make a post here please

baonguyen1

Thanks. Which file you you can restore now ? If you can restore the all data files you can restore the db by recreate the control files, on-line redo log .... Otherwise you have to go back with other backup set

Do you have any people that have Oracle DBA knowledge there ?

illtbagu

ASKER

We have no one with oracle knowledge here.

It seems the prevous system administrator excluded the oracle data directory in the nightly backup because of errors that occur when the cold back up and veritas. I have no idea this is what the ERP people told me. Luckly we have a cold back up that looks intact. The ERP people are going to completely rebuild oracle.

I am keeping my fingers crossed.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

baonguyen1

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