Thought Id add my 10 pence worth.

It is VERY important to mirror your controlfiles on totally separate physical disks, and it is SO easy to do (as sysdba said):

shutdown the database
physically copy (dont move it) the controlfile to a new location.
point the init.ora at it (add it to the control_files parameter)
start up your database again. piece of cake!

If you only have one controlfile and the disk it is on dies - you have no choice but to perform incomplete recovery......

Mark