Mark W. Farnham wrote: > Now if transportable tablespaces won't work for you, there are a couple of companies out > there that have utilities designed to scan datafiles to produce files useful for loading > your data from a damaged database that cannot be started from the datafiles of tablespaces > that remain viable. You'll need to be specific with them about what release, and I do not > think any of them operate as a free service (nor am I suggesting they should). Direct data unload is pricey and there is no guarantee that the resulting data will be a perfect representation of the committed data at any particular moment in time. It is a solution of last resort when all conventional solutions have failed. As Carel-Jan mentioned, top among those who can provide direct data unloading services are Kurt Van Meerbeeck in the Netherlands (I think), who owns a domain name very similar to mine, and provides his jDUL/DUDE service through Miracle in Denmark. Besides Kurt, Oracle Consulting will charge you a minimum of several tens of thousands of dollars to even think about using their Oracle internal-only DUL tool on your system. I also provide a service to unload most platforms and most versions reliably. There are a few others that have developed unloaders, but I cannot vouch for their effectiveness. One notable example is Lou Fanxin. Mr. Lou generously provides his AUL/MyDUL program for free download, but I am embarrassed to say I haven't tested it out yet. It doesn't sound like the OP needs direct data unloading, but that's a survey of the available services. Jeremiah Wilton ORA-600 Consulting http://www.ora-600.net -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l