Cannot recover control file in Oracle10g

Question

Dear friends ,
I have to delete my three control files for testing purpose in ORacle 10g .Before Deleting , I take a backup with control file and spfile using following way :
script :
run
allocate channel t1 type disk;
backup format 'df_%t_%s_%p'
(database);}
AND OUTPUT of RMAN ,
RMAN> show all;
CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON;
CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP FORMAT FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO 'C:\TEMP\ctrl_file%F';
Now when I run the restore script then it shows follwing error :
RMAN> set DBID=1178861114;
executing command: SET DBID
RMAN> restore controlfile from autobackup db_recovery_file_dest='C:\TEMP\CTRL_FILEC-1178861114-20080413-00';
Starting restore at 13-APR-08
allocated channel: ORA_DISK_1
channel ORA_DISK_1: sid=158 devtype=DISK
recovery area destination: C:\TEMP\CTRL_FILEC-1178861114-20080413-00
database name (or database unique name) used for search: ORCL
channel ORA_DISK_1: no autobackups found in the recovery area
channel ORA_DISK_1: looking for autobackup on day: 20080413
channel ORA_DISK_1: looking for autobackup on day: 20080412
channel ORA_DISK_1: looking for autobackup on day: 20080411
channel ORA_DISK_1: looking for autobackup on day: 20080410
channel ORA_DISK_1: looking for autobackup on day: 20080409
channel ORA_DISK_1: looking for autobackup on day: 20080408
channel ORA_DISK_1: looking for autobackup on day: 20080407
channel ORA_DISK_1: no autobackup in 7 days found
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS ===============
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-03002: failure of restore command at 04/13/2008 10:35:34
RMAN-06172: no autobackup found or specified handle is not a valid copy or piece
I dont know why my control files are not backed up ? can anybody plz help me ?

Answer 1

I can't say why what you did didn't work but I can say that using RMAN is not the best way to recover lost control files.
Lets assume you have three control files located on three different drives. It is impossible to accidentally delete all three so the best solution to losing one is to shutdown the database and copy an existing one to the location where a file has gone missing and rename it to the name of the deleted file.
Failing that you should always have a script created using:
BACKUP CONTROLFILE TO TRACE;I would only use the control files backed up by RMAN to create an auxiliary database such as a standby or for testing.