Oracle Database Discussions

Relative novice DBA here....

We were having a problem with a drive controller on one of our development database servers and the system admin had to re-install the operating system (Windows2000) and that efficiently wiped out all the Oracle registry entries. The database files are all still out there and Oracle is still installed, but of course since the registry entries aren't there it won't start up.

Is there any way to recreate those entries, or can I re-install Oracle, create databases and point them to the existing files. Will it be able to recognize that the files have data and be able to read them?

There were no backups because it was a development box and the data could just be reloaded (a long process I'm trying to avoid).

I can re-install Oracle entirely, recreate the databases from the DDL and reload the data, but I'm just trying to make sure there is not an easier way.

Is it "start from scratch" time?

I think this would be a good thing for folks to know.

Any help anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

- Dave Matern