Can you use an ops$ user to initiate an exp. ie from the command prompt: exp / parfile=t_tec.par where t_tec.par is: file=t_tec.dmp statistics=none indexes=n log=t_tec.log 9.2.0.4 on Sun Solaris 2.8 TIA --------------------------------- ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l