Originally posted by Prince
SVRMGRL is not used to stop/start the database.
Database is started/stopped through services only.
Wrong. You can configure your system whatever you want, but starting an Oracle service on NT by no means implies that database is started at the same time. Service can be started with or without the coresponding instance/database to be started. In any case, you can allways use svrmgrl/SQLPlus to stop/start your database, no matter if it was started along with the service or not.