Hi All,

A huge thanks in advance to anybody who can tackle this question. I
am trying to implement online backups on my Oracle 9.2 Server. When I
try to mount I receive the error "ORA-01081: cannot start
already-running ORACLE - shut it down first." How would you recommend
I handle this situation?

Thanks for any help you are able to give!

Rick

Looks like you are issuing a STARTUP command.

That error states that the database is already running - which is a
requirement for a hot backup. You must be archiving too.

For 9i you need to:

Issue "ALTER TABLESPACE XXXXX BEGIN BACKUP"
where XXXXX is the name of the tablespace you are backing up. Do this
for each tablespace you are backing up.

Execute the OS copy of the datafile(s) in the tablespace or
tablespaces you are backing up.

Issue "ALTER TABLESPACE XXXXX END BACKUP" where XXXXX is the name of
the tablespace you are backing up.

Execute "ALTER SYSTEM SWITCH LOGFILE" command or the "ALTER SYSTEM
ARCHIVE LOG ALL" commands - look in SQL reference manual for more
info.

Backup the control files.

"ALTER DATABASE BACKUP CONTROLFILE TO TRACE"
"ALTER DATABASE BACKUP CONTROLFILE TO 'filename' REUSE"


Chris Foot
Senior Oracle Instructor
The Oracle Instructor's Guide
www.oracleeducator.com