where is my Oracle database located on my hard disk?

Question

I used to have a oracle installed on my old pc, i had a database on it ,, but currently what i have is only the hard disk of my old pc, dose anyone can help me how can i find my database on that hard disk and how to use it in my new pc installed oracle?

Thanks

Answer 1

Firstly it depends on the Operating system.

Secondly, there are a number of files that make up an Oracle database. These are the:

1. Control File
2. Parameter File
3. Online Redo logs
4. Tablespace files
5. Backup files, archived log files and other optional stuff

[I've community wiki'd this in case I've missed any.]

I've got a default install of Oracle XE on ubuntu linux.

My control file is /usr/lib/oracle/xe/oradata/XE/control.dbf

I've got a parameter file of /usr/lib/oracle/xe/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/server/dbs/spfileXE.ora

My online redo logs are in /usr/lib/oracle/xe/app/oracle/flash_recovery_area/XE/onlinelog

My tablespace files are in /usr/lib/oracle/xe/oradata/XE/

Answer 2

Schema objects are logical data storage structures. Schema objects do not have a one-to-one correspondence to physical files on disk that store their information. However, Oracle stores a schema object logically within a tablespace of the database. The data of each object is physically contained in one or more of the tablespace's datafiles.

You can seek for that files, depending on the version you were using.

Answer 3

As far as being able to use the old database files, see my post in this SF thread. Assuming the database was okay on your old PC, you stand a reasonable chance of recovering this database on your new PC. Make copies of your database files before trying to bring up the database in case something goes wrong. Essentially what you appear to have is a cold backup of your old database.

Answer 4

from http://database.itags.org/oracle/147123/ :

Please take time to notice that ericlaiys (the OP) has posted numerous basic questions in short order to this newsgroup. It is obvious to me that ericlaiys is new to the Oracle world. (Nothing wrong with that! ;) ) The OP's life would be much easier if he read the documentation to get a good grasp of these concepts. That is the avenue I am trying to push him towards.

Note: This is not meant as a criticism of ericlaiys. We were all new once before. And I know that when I was at this stage in my career, someone pointing out the Oracle docs helped me tremendously in my career growth. This is constructive criticism only...

There are many times that the RTFM answer can be given. I do not use that answer in my posts every time. In this case, I not only politely said RTFM, but I also gave the OP a link to the exact chapter which covers this exact procedure in detail. Now the OP knows a little more on Oracle documentation and hopefully will learn how to use the docs to help himself in the future...much more quickly than can be done in this forum. This is the "teach a man to fish" approach.

Note2: I assumed in my response that this OP is male as the username contains the first name Eric. If the OP is female, then I apologize for the misconception.

Additionally, your response was much more than the OP needed. There is no reason to recreate the control file just because you need to move the datafiles to a new disk unit on the same server. Simply taking the tablespace offline, moving the datafile, and using ALTER DATABASE RENAME will suffice. IMHO, Recreating the control file is more work than its worth for this operation.

Cheers! Brian