The following steps shows how to manually delete a database within Oracle 11g, running in an Linux environment.
I have Centos 6 system with Oralce 11G installed.
Use SQL*Plus or your favorite SQL command line tool to log in to the target database; log in as **sysdba**
Type the following commands to get the path to various files:
select name from v$datafile;
select member from v$logfile;
select name from v$controlfile;
select name from v$tempfile;
**Shut down the database within SQL*Plus, and then exit out of SQL*Plus**
sqlplus " / as sysdba'
----------
shutdown immediate;
quit;
**Stop the listener service by issuing the following command in the terminal prompt:**
From Oralce Linux account do:
lsnrctl stop
Recall the file paths found earlier; use them as a check list as you delete each one of those files. Reminder: did you back up your database yet? When ready, go ahead delete your data files, redo log files, control files, and temp files.
- Go to the **$ORACLE_HOME/network/admin** directory and delete the **tnsnames.ora** and **listener.ora** files;
- Go to the **$ORACLE_HOME/dbs** directory and delete the **init[db_name].ora**, **orapw[db_name]**, and **spfile[db_name].ora** files;
- Go to the **$ORACLE_HOME/admin/[db_name]/pfile** directory and delete the **init[db_name].ora** file;
- Go to the **$ORACLE_HOME/admin/[db_name]/adump** directory and delete all files in that directory;
- Edit the file **/etc/oratab** by removing the line that starts with your database name.
