Originally posted by diwakar
Mr Jovery,
I think you have not read the previous section of my post. I have clearly stated that Iam able to login as user DCBL which means that the database is up.
I accept that is what you said in you first post, but in your later example

SQL> connect sys@dcbl as sysdba
Enter password:
Connected to an idle instance.
SQL> select * from v$instance;
select * from v$instance
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01012: not logged on