First of all : thanks to Alan, Norman and Andrew for their replies ! I've tried to create a controlfile from trace. Ripped out everything except the basics : CREATE CONTROLFILE REUSE DATABASE "DWHPRD" NORESETLOGS ARCHIVELOG MAXLOGFILES 16 MAXLOGMEMBERS 3 MAXDATAFILES 1000 MAXINSTANCES 8 MAXLOGHISTORY 9344 LOGFILE GROUP 1 ( '/u52/redo/DWHPRD/redo01a.log', '/u12/redo/DWHPRD/redo01b.log' ) SIZE 500M, ... ... DATAFILE '/u31/oradata/DWHPRD/system01.dbf', ... ... CHARACTER SET AL32UTF8 ; No joy :-( SQL> @ctl CREATE CONTROLFILE REUSE DATABASE "DWHPRD" NORESETLOGS ARCHIVELOG * ERROR at line 1: ORA-01503: CREATE CONTROLFILE failed ORA-01189: file is from a different RESETLOGS than previous files ORA-01110: data file 3: '/u31/oradata/DWHPRD/undotbs01.dbf' Mvg/regards Jo -----Original Message----- From: Norman Dunbar [mailto:oracle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: woensdag 28 augustus 2013 18:13 To: jo.holvoet@xxxxxxxxx Cc: Holvoet, Jo; oracle-l-freelists Subject: Re: RMAN restore/recover problem Hi Jo, On 28/08/13 17:03, Jo Holvoet wrote: > the current incarnation dates from 2011. So, no recent resetlogs. :-( > As I replied to Alan, I think the cause may be that I don't have a > sufficiently "old" controlfile to work with ...-- Yes, I saw that reply. Time to slap a Unix guy by the sound of things. ;-) At the risk of poking you with a sharp stick, does your company/DBAs practice recoveries? Andrew mentioned recreating the controlfile from a trace, and trying to recover again. I've never done that, but if your backup data is in the controlfile, you'll need to re-catalogue all the backups again. :-( I think you said you were using a catalog[ue] so you should be ok with that. Good luck, and please, let me know how it went, I'm interested. Thanks. (If you get time that is.) Cheers, Norm. -- Norman Dunbar Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd Registered address: 27a Lidget Hill Pudsey West Yorkshire United Kingdom LS28 7LG Company Number: 05132767 -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l