The Oracle (tm) Users' Co-Operative FAQ
How do I delete an entire database ?
| Author's name: Connor McDonald
Author's Email: connor_mcdonald@yahoo.com |
Date written: November 10, 2001 Oracle version(s): 7.3+ |
| How do I delete an entire database ? |
The key to removing a database is locating all of the files that may be relevant to it. Typically this will consist of:
- database files
- redo logs
- archived logs
- control files
- OS related files (alert log, trace files)
- UTL_FILE directories
- Password files
- SQL Net configuration files
- (NT) Service entries
- (NT) Registry entries
In most cases, the database assistant (dbassist or dbca on most platforms) can be used to delete a database as appropriate for the relavant platform. Alternatively, the following process can be used as a rough guide (assuming your database still is running)
| Task | How to |
| List database files | select name from V$DATAFILE |
| List redo logs | select member from V$LOGFILE |
| List archived logs | select value from v$parameter where name like 'log_archive_dest%' |
| List control files | select name from v$controlfile |
| List OS related files (alert log, trace files) | select value from v$parameter where name like '%dest' |
| List UTL_FILE directories | select value from v$parameter2 where name = 'utl_file_dir' |
| List Password files | location will vary from platform to platform |
| List SQL Net configuration files | Search for files listener.ora, tnsnames.ora, oratab, or use the Network manager tool to remove the appropriate entries |
| (NT) Service entries | Services under NT |
| (NT) Registry entries | Via regedit |
You can now shut the database. In most cases, the appropriate files as determined from above can then be deleted, but don't forget common sense. For example, your listener.ora file may be shared by other databases, the directories for UTL_FILE may also be shared etc. Even your database files could be shared if you were running parallel server (or sharing read-only tablespaces between two totally separate databases)
Further reading: N/A
