Recover database using RMAN

Question

Hi, I hope someone can explain to me what happened with my recovery process. I am running Oracle 8i.
I dropped a tablespace on 11/22 @ 09:11. I first tried to do a full restore without restoring the control file (I was told that I should keep the current control file in order to apply any logs).
RMAN> run {
2> allocate channel d1 type disk;
3> set limit channel d1 kbytes 100000;
4> allocate channel d2 type disk;
5> set limit channel d2 kbytes 100000;
6> allocate channel d3 type disk;
7> set limit channel d3 kbytes 100000;
8> restore database;
9> alter database mount;
10> recover database;
11> alter database open resetlogs;
12> release channel d1;
13> release channel d2;
14> release channel d3;
15> }
I received the following error:
RMAN-03002: failure during compilation of command
RMAN-03013: command type: recover
RMAN-03006: non-retryable error occurred during execution of command: recover(1)
RMAN-07004: unhandled exception during command execution on channel default
RMAN-10035: exception raised in RPC: ORA-19654: must use backup controlfile to switch file incarnations
RMAN-10031: ORA-19654 occurred during call to DBMS_BACKUP_RESTORE.SWITCHTOCOPY
I could not open the database, next I did a point in time restore with the control file:
RMAN> run {
2> allocate channel d1 type disk;
3> set limit channel d1 kbytes 100000;
4> allocate channel d2 type disk;
5> set limit channel d2 kbytes 100000;
6> allocate channel d3 type disk;
7> set limit channel d3 kbytes 100000;
8> restore controlfile;
9> alter database mount;
10> set until time = '2004-11-22:09:00:00';
11> restore database;
12> recover database;
13> release channel d1;
14> release channel d2;
15> release channel d3;
16> }
I received the following error:
RMAN-03002: failure during compilation of command
RMAN-03013: command type: recover
RMAN-03002: failure during compilation of command
RMAN-03013: command type: recover(4)
RMAN-06053: unable to perform media recovery because of missing log
RMAN-06025: no backup of log thread 1 seq 8 scn 263762 found to restore
I could not open the database, I received the following error when I tried to open with resetlogs:
RMAN-06003 .....:ORA-01113 file 1 needs media recovery
'/d01/oradata/dr_cms/system01.dbf'
I was done for the day and the system was shutdown, including the AIX server. When I started everything this morning, I did an 'alter database open resetlogs' and the database opened and the tablespace that I dropped was back!!!
Does this make sense? Can anyone tell me what happened?!
Why should a reboot of the system cause the database to open?

Answer 1

No, you do not have to reboot the OS to get start the database. To know what exactly passed it was needed to see at the OS level the datafiles found in disk during the several intents you did for recover the database.
Joel Pérez
http://www.oracle.com/technology/experts