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Oracle DBA FAQ - Creating New Database Instance Manually

By: FYIcenter.com

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(Continued from previous part...)

How To Create a Server Parameter File?

This is Step 5. The initialization parameter file is good to get an Oracle database instance started. But it is not ideal run an instance as production. You need to convert the initialization parameter file into a Server Parameter File (SPFile) using the CREATE SPFILE statement. The script below shows you how do this:

SQL> CREATE SPFILE=$ORACLE_HOME/dbs/SPFILEFYI.ora
  2  FROM PFILE=$ORACLE_HOME/database/initFYI_ini.ora;
File created.

Note that $ORACLE_HOME should be replaced by the real path name where your Oracle server is intalled.

The SPFile should be located in the expected directory and named as SPFILE($SID).ora.

How To Start an Oracle Instance?

This is Step 6. Now you are ready to start the new Oracle Instance without any database. This instance will be used to create a database. Starting an instance without database can be done by using STARTUP NOMOUNT statement as shown below:

>.\bin\sqlplus /nolog

SQL> CONNECT / AS SYSDBA
Connected.

SQL> SHUTDOWN
ORACLE instance shut down.

SQL> STARTUP NOMOUNT
ORA-00821: Specified value of sga_target 16M is too small, 
needs to be at least 20M

The SHUTDOWN command is need to bring the default instance XE down.

The STARTUP NOMOUNT command failed because it tried to start the default instance XE, and there is a bad parameter in the XE instance SPFile.

See the next FAQ question to find another way to start the new instance FYI.

How To Start a Specific Oracle Instance?

A simple way to start a specific Oracle instance is to start the instance with the PFILE option as shown in the following example:

>.\bin\sqlplus /nolog

SQL> CONNECT / AS SYSDBA
Connected.

SQL> STARTUP NOMOUNT
   PFILE=$ORACLE_HOME/database/initFYI_ini.ora

ORA-02778: Name given for the log directory is invalid

The PFILE option allows you to specify the initialization parameter file of a specific Oracle instance. But the initialization parameter file created in Step 3 has some problem with the log directory.

How To Start Instance with a Minimal Initialization Parameter File?

The sample initialization parameter file provided by Oracle seems to be not working. But we can try to start the new instance with a minimal initialization parameter file (PFile). First you can create another PFile, $ORACLE_HOME/database/initFYI_ini_min.ora, as shown below:

db_name=FYI
control_files=("\oraclexe\oradata\FYI\control.dbf")
undo_management=AUTO

Then start the FYI instance again:

SQL> CONNECT / AS SYSDBA
Connected.

SQL> STARTUP NOMOUNT
   PFILE=$ORACLE_HOME/database/initFYI_ini_min.ora

ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area  113246208 bytes
Fixed Size                  1286028 bytes
Variable Size              58720372 bytes
Database Buffers           50331648 bytes
Redo Buffers                2908160 bytes

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