Media recovery methods

If you see any of the following error messages, you must recover the database:

ORA-00204 "error in reading controlfile 'name' block num, # blocks num"
ORA-01113 "file name needs recovery"
ORA-01178 "file name created before last CREATE CONTROLFILE, cannot recreate."
ORA-01116 "error in opening database file n"

Three different methods exist for database media recovery. The following table outlines when to use each one.

Method	Description
Recovering with the current control file using RMAN (disk)	Try this method first Restores database to the point of database failure No committed transactions are lost
Recovering with the backup control file using RMAN (disk)	Use if Method 1 failed due to problems with the control file Also restores the database to the point of the database failure Perform a database backup immediately after recovery No committed transactions are lost
Recovering an AS3000 Oracle database using Flashbackup	Only to be used when everything has been lost due to some media failure Use this method to re-create the database if all you have is a backup tape and all other files are lost Recovers only up to the time of the most recently archived redo log, if you have access to it Recovers only up to the time of the most recent database backup, if you only have access to tape backup If you are specifically restoring onto a rebuilt system—that is, if you have only a backup tape and no existing database files), use this method.