I don't installed 10g but How did you create the service for example oradim -new -sid %1 -intpwd %170613474 -startmode auto -pfile E:\ora%1\init\init%1.ora -maxusers 5 in your manual startup you are not specifing the startup file, maybe this could be the reason, you could be using two distinct parameter files, . But if try to startup the database as follows, the database becomes operati= onal and then I can connect to the database without above error. SQL>connect /nolog; sql> conn sys/password@sid as sysdba; sql>shutdown; sql>startup; Juan Carlos Reyes Pacheco OCP Database 9.2 Standard Edition ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------