Kamus >But, can anyone prove if that block is dirty, will >DUMP action cause the DBWn to write this block >into disk or not? "prove" is big word... I'll limit myself to show you that in my case the dirty block is not written to disk. SQL> CREATE TABLE t (n NUMBER) TABLESPACE test_8k; SQL> INSERT INTO t VALUES (42); SQL> COMMIT; SQL> ALTER SYSTEM CHECKPOINT; SQL> INSERT INTO t VALUES (666); SQL> SELECT n, 2 dump(n,16) n_hex, 3 dbms_rowid.rowid_relative_fno(rowid) rfile_nr, 4 dbms_rowid.rowid_block_number(rowid) block_nr, 5 dbms_rowid.rowid_row_number(rowid) row_nr 6 FROM t; N N_HEX RFILE_NR BLOCK_NR ROW_NR ---------- -------------------- ---------- ---------- ---------- 42 Typ=2 Len=2: c1,2b 9 10 0 666 Typ=2 Len=3: c2,7,43 9 10 1 SQL> SELECT name FROM v$datafile WHERE rfile# = 9; NAME -------------------------------------------------------------------------- /u00/oradata/A1020/test_8k.dbf SQL> ALTER SYSTEM DUMP DATAFILE '/u00/oradata/A1020/test_8k.dbf' BLOCK 10; Now, to check the data in the file, you can either use a dump at OS level or BBED. Since BBED knows the format of the blocks, I'll use it... As you can see only a single row, the first one, is shown. BBED> info File# Name Size(blks) ----- ---- ---------- 9 /u00/oradata/A1020/test_8k.dbf 1280 11 /u00/oradata/A1020/test_8k_assm.dbf 1280 15 /u00/oradata/A1020/undotbs2.dbf 12800 BBED> set dba 9,10 DBA 0x0240000a (37748746 9,10) BBED> x /*r rowdata rowdata[0] @8182 ---------- flag@8182: 0x2c (KDRHFL, KDRHFF, KDRHFH) lock@8183: 0x01 cols@8184: 1 col 0[2] @8185: 0xc1 0x2b tailchk @8188 ------- BBED-00210: no row at this offset In the trace file I have the following data (notice that only one row, the first one, is available). block_row_dump: tab 0, row 0, @0x1f9a tl: 6 fb: --H-FL-- lb: 0x1 cc: 1 col 0: [ 2] c1 2b end_of_block_dump Of course if I execute another "ALTER SYSTEM CHECKPOINT" I see the following output. BBED> x /*r rowdata rowdata[0] @8175 ---------- flag@8175: 0x2c (KDRHFL, KDRHFF, KDRHFH) lock@8176: 0x02 cols@8177: 1 col 0[3] @8178: 0xc2 0x07 0x43 rowdata[7] @8182 ---------- flag@8182: 0x2c (KDRHFL, KDRHFF, KDRHFH) lock@8183: 0x01 cols@8184: 1 col 0[2] @8185: 0xc1 0x2b tailchk @8188 ------- BBED-00210: no row at this offset HTH Chris -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l