Hi Matthias, Thanks for the feedback. I thought I had managed to setup the ASM correctly as I can see the DGs from both nodes. In the course of my hacking today, I screwed up a running instance of ASM (just before my post and not realising what I had done til later). During an attempt at starting an instance with the pfile setting cluser_database=true. I was getting errors regarding unavailable feature (or similar). After a quick google I ended up relinking a couple or libraries for RAC (I think,.. sorry not too professional here). Anyway, as ASM was running at the time, it got a bit upset. After bouncing the instance all looked ok. I've had quite a few problems with this setup today. But got to the point where I could start both instances with local pfile, but when I try to share the spfile via ASM I run into errors about the spfile missing. So it seems all is not well, so I will to take your pointers and read the guide you've suggested. Does it have a section called "Setting up ASM after its all gone pair shaped" ? LOL Thanks again,. Cheers Tony