How to restore an Oracle XE Database without online logs and SPFILE?

Question

Hi there,
My laptop was crashed last week and I was able to get only current datafiles without two online logs files and SPFILEXE.ORA from my old hard drive. I've installed with the same version of Oracle Database 10g Express Edition Release 10.2.0.1.0* software on Windows XP Pro.
I have DATAFILEs from my old db instance XE which have my thesis data.
*'C:\ORACLEXE\ORADATA\XE\SYSTEM.DBF',*
*'C:\ORACLEXE\ORADATA\XE\UNDO.DBF',*
*'C:\ORACLEXE\ORADATA\XE\SYSAUX.DBF',*
*'C:\ORACLEXE\ORADATA\XE\USERS.DBF',*
*'C:\ORACLEXE\ORADATA\XE\TEMP.DBF',*
*'C:\ORACLEXE\ORADATA\XE\USERS.DBF'*
Even though I am not 100% percent sure about If I've set the NOARCHIVELOG mode previously but neither I have the redo log files are backed up i.e. two redo log files are in C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\flash_recovery_area\XE\ONLINELOG nor have SPFILE<<SID>>.ORA. Thus, this is not really typical "+Cold backup+" when you stop the database and zip up all those 9 files (in NOARCHIVELOG mode).
I've tried the RMAN utility but it seems it requires redo log files too.
I wonder if I can restore somehow by copying all 6 datafiles to the same folder 'C:\ORACLEXE\ORADATA\XE\' or not. If so, how can I do so?
Will appreciate any advice.
Thanks in advance,

Answer 1

Recovering an SPfile is trivial if you have the alert log, locate the last startup- there will be a section with all the non-default parameters. Copy/paste those items to create a pfile, use it for a startup mount, check the catalog views to see if recovery is needed. Without the online redo logs it will probably need an incomplete recovery.
So in the old alertlog, [drive:]\oraclexe\app\oracle\admin\xe\bdump\alert_xe.log, grab the lines after "System parameters with non-default values:" its maybe 15 or 20 items for an "out of the box" XE install, save those to a file someplace like [drive:]\oraclexe\app\oracle\admin\xe\init\initXE.ora, fire up sqlplus and connect as sysdba, startup with the pfile ...
$ sqlplus /nolog
> connect /as sysdba;
startup mount pfile='[drive:]\oraclexe\app\oracle\admin\xe\init\initXE.ora';
If the database makes it to mount mode, check the recovery view ...
select * from v$recover_file;
If that view is clean, open 'er up should be good to go ... and create a new spfile:
alter database open;
create spfile from pfile='[drive:]\oraclexe\app\oracle\admin\xe\init\initXE.ora';
If the instance was in archivelog mode and the archive destination wasn't specified it uses flash_recovery_area for storing archivelog files, check if there are any files in the flash_recovery_area/XE/ARCHIVELOG/[yyyy-mm-dd] (?) directories. Or when connected as sysdba a command will tell you if archivelog mode is enabled:
archive log list;