Hi,
Its better to rebuild the current index rather than dropping and recreating it.In Oracle 8i there is an option of rebuilding the index online when u are performing DML statements on the table.
So its better to rebuild the index in the less office peak times(usally in the night) which will be faster.
Command to rebuild the index online

alter index scott.empno_index rebuild online;

Regards,
ROhit Nirkhe,Oracle DBA,OCp 8i
[email protected]