Thanks Paul. Good info, but I'm specifically asking with the assumption that there are no hardware problems - just a normal Windows shutdown forcing Oracle to terminate abnormally. If you lose your controlfile or redo logs, have write errors, etc. - then you've got serious problems regardless of whether or not Oracle shuts down cleanly before Windows kills it. I'm not trying to advocate abnormal shutdowns - just curious. Thanks, Brandon Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message or attachments hereto. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of this company shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by it. -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l