Oracle7 Server Administrator's Guide

Recovering From an Incomplete Online Tablespace Backup

The following situations can cause an incomplete tablespace backup:

You did not indicate the end of the online tablespace backup operation (using the ALTER TABLESPACE command with the END BACKUP option), and the database was subsequently shut down with the ABORT option.

A system or instance failure, or SHUTDOWN...ABORT interrupted the backup.

Upon detecting an incomplete online tablespace backup at startup, Oracle assumes that media recovery (possibly requiring archived redo log) is necessary for startup to proceed. You can avoid performing media recovery by using the ALTER DATABASE DATAFILE...END BACKUP command. Remember to list all the datafiles of the tablespaces that were in the process of being backup up before the database was restarted. You can determine whether datafiles were in the process of being backed up by querying the V$BACKUP view.

Warning: Do not use ALTER DATABASE DATAFILE...END BACKUP if you have restored any of the affected files from a backup.

After you have restarted your database, you can perform the recovery in either of two ways:

Use the STARTUP RECOVER command to start and recover the database automatically.

Start an instance, open and mount the database, and issue the statement RECOVER DATABASE.

The first method is easier because it prompts Oracle to perform recovery only if it is needed.

See Also: For information on starting the database, see .

For information on recovering a database, see .