I thought I'd post back an update on this, and yep blog it as well. Nuno looks to be correct that this was a lob that was subject to updates. The fact that this table turned out to have files with .mov, .mpg and .avi extensions as well as .htm was a wee bit interesting too. anyway, export/import did not resolve the issue when more space was procured. This confirmed to me that the issue was with corrupt data - in addition dbv showed that a) there was only one page affected "in flux" b) it was different from the block pre drop/recreate I then took a block dump of the affected block and got a row listing including just a single row from my table back. There was an update transaction in the ITL slots as well, pretty much along with Nuno's comments about updates on his blog. I then determined which row we were talking about, deleted the row, and took a second block dump of the same block to confirm that it was now empty of data. finally I reran dbv again and this time the file came up clean. thanks for all the kind suggestions - it's a shame that this database is not 10g and block checking & recovery is unavailable. Niall On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Nuno Souto <dbvision@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Niall Litchfield wrote,on my timestamp of 5/02/2009 2:04 AM: > > I'm pretty much out of (cheap) ideas for dealing with this >> corruption right now, so would welcome some. >> > > What is the output of this: > > select dbms_metadata.get_ddl('TABLE','<table_name>') from dual; > > Also, some ideas on what to look for and where things are, here: > http://dbasrus.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html > > HTH > -- > Cheers > Nuno Souto > in sunny Sydney, Australia > dbvision@xxxxxxxxxxxx > -- > //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l > > > -- Niall Litchfield Oracle DBA http://www.orawin.info