Wel you could look at the time stamp of the rman log, I just checked our logs end with

Finished backup at 08-APR-04

Recovery Manager complete.

so yeah the time is not there. I just know that my backup starts at 9pm and that the logile says 9:18 so I'm assuming it took 18 minutes.

The spfile works like a champ (nasty bug if you're using RAC though)
and then you can backup/restore the whole shooting match with RMAN.

Why not create the spfile, rename the init file to .old
and then on the next reboot you'll be using the spfile?

Steve