Are they both running under the same ORACLE_HOME? Tony ----- Original Message ----- From: Chirag DBA To: Oracle-L Freelists Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 4:43 PM Subject: Multiple Instance issue I am running multiple instances on test machine, Windows, 9ir2. Both have SGA of 100m and machine memory is 512 mb. I am getting the following error. C:\DOCUME~1\CMAJMU~1>set ORACLE_SID=chirep C:\DOCUME~1\CMAJMU~1>sqlplus /nolog SQL*Plus: Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production on Tue Nov 1 10:39:26 2005 Copyright (c) 1982, 2002, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved. SQL> conn / as sysdba Connected to an idle instance. But the same instance is up and running in another windows, but in any new window I am opening, this particular is instance is showing as Connected to Idle Instance. Can anyone tell me what could have gone wrong here? It was working fine and I have not done any other installation in recent past. Nothing is showing in Alert log files too, as the same instance is running in other window. regards - Chirag