What I am trying to accomplish is to create a TEST database on a different server. This TEST database will be a copy of the PROD database, which is in ARCHIVE log mode. We don't shutdown the PROD database to take a backup so we do a HOT backup.

My question is what are the steps to create this TEST database? I have done the same for other databases but when I have a cold backup of a database, I don't run into the 'media needs recovery" error message when attempting to open the database.

This is what I have done so far:

1) Copy over all of the.dbf files from the PROD database HOT backup to the TEST server.
2) Copy over the init.ora file and made necessary changes to the pathing.
3) Installed Oracle binary (Oracle8i 8.1.7.4.0) on TEST server and applied the same patch as in the PROD database.
4) Recreate the controlfiles, which was successful.
5) When I attempt to open the database, I get an error saying that the system_s01.dbf needs media recovery.

What should I do? Do I need to copy over the archive files when we did the HOT backup. I still have them.

Please help!