2 datafiles with how much contents, and how big compared to the rest of the database? Now those 2 datafiles are all of one or two tablespaces, and if you can make do with just the contents of those two tablespaces from the production database with no referential integrity problems or things out of balance type issues, you might consider just sqlplus copy or unload script -> loader or exp/imp of just the objects in the tablespaces affected by the loss of those two files. If there are integrity issues, by all means re-clone production, but if not, it is possible you'll do a lot less work by just getting back what you lost. Regards, mwf -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Bryan Wells Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 11:40 AM To: Oracle-L Subject: doh! stupid datafiles Running 8.1.7 on Solaris 8. Yesterday I deleted 2 datafiles, luckily in a non-production environment. However, this system does not get backed up. Im thinking I am most likely stuck recreating this database from the production instance. is this my only option, and what is the doc id in metalink that can walk me through this. -- Bryan S Wells bunjibry@xxxxxxxxx -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l