anyone ever restore a backup directly with dbms_backup_restore? I'm running 8.1.7 on winders(not my choice). The rman backup is true Omniback and is controlfile based, there is no catalog. Normally, I can't even spell RMAN, it always bites me when I touch it. The backup that I'm trying to restore was successful. The db was backed up in one run block with a single backup statement. going from memory, it looks something like run { backup database including controlfile archivelog all delete input; } (that's from memory, so you get the gist of it) Here is the code that I used to get the control file back. declare devtype varchar2(256); done boolean; begin devtype:=dbms_backup_restore.deviceallocate( type=>'sbt_tape', params=>'ENV=(OB2BARTYPE=Oracle8,OB2APPNAME=rdcs,OB2BARLIST=ORA_RDCS_WEEKLY)', ident=>'t1'); dbms_backup_restore.restoresetdatafile; dbms_backup_restore.restorecontrolfileto('D:\oracle\ora81\dbs\CTL1rdcs.ORA'); dbms_backup_restore.restorebackuppiece( 'ORA_RDCS_WEEKLY<rdcs_6222:596513521:1>.dbf', DONE=>done ); dbms_backup_restore.restoresetdatafile; dbms_backup_restore.restorecontrolfileto('D:\DBS\RDCS\CTL2RDCS.ORA'); dbms_backup_restore.restorebackuppiece( 'ORA_RDCS_WEEKLY<rdcs_6222:596513521:1>.dbf', DONE=>done ); dbms_backup_restore.devicedeallocate('t1'); end; / I'd like to use similar code to get the entire db back. I seem to be missing something so far. Direct responses back to me would be great! thx John Parker DBA --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Get on board. You're invited to try the new Yahoo! Mail Beta.