ORA-09782 & ORA-09783

[Catherine LeBlanc]

I am attempting to recreate a clone of our production database on our test machine and I get the following errors when I try to start it up:
----------------------------------------------------------------
SVRMGR> startup mount
ORACLE instance started.
Total System Global Area     169900992 bytes
Fixed Size                       50832 bytes
Variable Size                 80024880 bytes
Database Buffers              89620480 bytes
Redo Buffers                    204800 bytes
ORA-00205: error in identifying control
file '/usr/u17/oradata/dbs/ctrl1PROD.ctl'
ORA-09782: sfifi: another instance has the same database mounted.
SVRMGR> shutdown
ORA-01507: database not mounted
ORACLE instance shut down.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

I dropped that control file and got the same error, and when I try creating new control files I get:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
ORACLE instance started.
Total System Global Area     169900992 bytes
Fixed Size                       50832 bytes
Variable Size                 80024880 bytes
Database Buffers              89620480 bytes
Redo Buffers                    204800 bytes
CREATE CONTROLFILE REUSE DATABASE "PROD" RESETLOGS ARCHIVELOG
*
ORA-01503: CREATE CONTROLFILE failed
ORA-01565: error in identifying file '/usr/u17/oradata/prod/syst_PROD.dbf'
ORA-09783: sfifi: Cannot determine if another instance has mounted the same database.
Digital Unix Error: 20: Not a directory
ALTER DATABASE OPEN RESETLOGS
*
ORA-01507: database not mounted
ORA-01507: database not mounted
ORACLE instance shut down.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I tried SET and NORESTLOGS, and rearranging the datafiles in the script,
all with no difference. The files definitely exist, and the source database
was shutdown during the copy.
This happened before when I tried to change the instance name, but I am not
doing that now. I know that this error occurs when cloning on the same machine
with the source database running, but I am on a totally different machine.
Does anyone know what Oracle checks internally that makes it think the
instance is mounted when it is not?

--
Catherine A. LeBlanc, Database Analyst
Bates College, Administrative Computing
[EMAIL PROTECTED]         (207)786-6431
Oracle7 Server Release 7.3.4.3
Digital UNIX V4.0G (Rev. 1530)