Guys the DB is Oracle 9i I have the control & data, pfiles files of a previous database -same oracle version. (OS crashed, so we reinstaleld the OS and oracle but all the OS files are safe) I need to restore this to a new dtabase. How do I do it? I tried it using oradim, the instance wouldnt start. thanks in advance --------------------------------- Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.