I am trying to restore an Oracle DB, but I am getting strange controlfile errors. What do I do next?

Oracle version = Oracle 8i (817_312) //Yes I know this is old. Database id = LED OS = Solaris 8 Oracle USERID = oraled Oracle DBA group = dba rman backups to disk. Sorry this is so long. I am not a DBA, I am UNIX/Linux system administrator. We lost our DBA a while ago, and I was told to keep it running. What am I missing or doing wrong? I am trying to restore an oracle database from a good backup and I am getting errors that there is a problem with the controlfiles. The oracle DB is up, mounted and open when this script runs. This is how we are backing up the oracle DB from Oracle's cron. rman target / nocatalog cmdfile=/oracle/admin/led/rman/LEDlvl0 log=$LOGFILE and in /oracle/admin/led/rman/LEDlvl0.sh we have run { set command id to 'LED_rman_test'; allocate channel disk1 type disk format '/apps1/backup/%d.LVL0.%s.%t.%p.dbf'; allocate channel disk2 type disk format '/apps2/backup/%d.LVL0.%s.%t.%p.dbf'; allocate channel disk3 type disk format '/apps3/backup/%d.LVL0.%s.%t.%p.dbf'; allocate channel disk5 type disk format '/apps5/backup/%d.LVL0.%s.%t.%p.dbf'; allocate channel disk6 type disk format '/apps6/backup/%d.LVL0.%s.%t.%p.dbf'; backup incremental level=0 setsize=7000000 database ; backup (current controlfile format '/apps4/backup/%d.%s.%t.%p.ctl'); release channel disk1; release channel disk2; release channel disk3; release channel disk5; release channel disk6; This ran succesfully. I want to restore this backup. I have removed the data files and copied the control file (/apps4/backup/LED.22010.973362972.1.ctl) file back to the the locations specified by the initLED.ora file. As the Oracle user these are the commands I am running. $ rman nocatalog RMAN> connect target sys/********@LED RMAN> startup mount and I get this error RMAN-06196: Oracle instance started RMAN-00571: =========================================================== RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS =============== RMAN-00571: =========================================================== RMAN-06003: ORACLE error from target database: ORA-00205: error in identifying controlfile, check alert log for more info RMAN-06097: text of failing SQL statement: alter database mount RMAN-06099: error occurred in source file: krmk.pc, line: 4192 and the alertLED.log shows: Tue Apr 24 16:57:04 2018 Starting ORACLE instance (normal) LICENSE_MAX_SESSION = 0 LICENSE_SESSIONS_WARNING = 0 LICENSE_MAX_USERS = 0 Starting up ORACLE RDBMS Version: 8.1.7.0.0. System parameters with non-default values: processes = 150 sessions = 170 timed_statistics = TRUE event = 10183 trace name context forever, level 1, 10191 trace name context forever, level 1 shared_pool_size = 400000000 enqueue_resources = 8000 control_files = /oracle/LED/sapdata1/cntrl/cntrlLED.dbf, /oracle/LED/sapdata2/cntrl/cntrlLED.dbf, /oracle/LED/sapdata3/cntrl/cntrlLED.dbf db_block_buffers = 142000 db_block_size = 8192 db_block_lru_latches = 4 compatible = 8.1.0 log_archive_start = TRUE log_archive_dest = /oracle/LED/saparch/R3Parch log_archive_min_succeed_dest= 1 log_buffer = 1048576 log_checkpoint_interval = 300000 log_checkpoint_timeout = 0 db_files = 254 db_file_multiblock_read_count= 8 log_checkpoints_to_alert = TRUE control_file_record_keep_time= 45 dml_locks = 2500 row_locking = always replication_dependency_tracking= FALSE transactions_per_rollback_segment= 20 max_rollback_segments = 400 rollback_segments = PRS_0, PRS_1, PRS_2, PRS_3, PRS_4, PRS_5, PRS_6, PRS_7, PRS_8, PRS_9 transaction_auditing = FALSE remote_os_authent = TRUE remote_login_passwordfile= EXCLUSIVE db_domain = world audit_trail = TRUE sort_area_size = 2097152 sort_area_retained_size = 0 db_name = LED open_cursors = 800 optimizer_mode = choose optimizer_index_cost_adj = 10 cursor_space_for_time = FALSE parallel_max_servers = 20 hash_join_enabled = FALSE background_dump_dest = /oracle/LED/saptrace/background user_dump_dest = /oracle/LED/saptrace/usertrace core_dump_dest = /oracle/LED/saptrace/background PMON started with pid=2 DBW0 started with pid=3 LGWR started with pid=4 CKPT started with pid=5 SMON started with pid=6 RECO started with pid=7 Tue Apr 24 16:57:07 2018 ARCH: STARTING ARCH PROCESSES ARC0 started with pid=8 Tue Apr 24 16:57:07 2018 ARCH: STARTING ARCH PROCESSES COMPLETE Tue Apr 24 16:57:07 2018 ARC0: Archival started Tue Apr 24 16:57:07 2018 alter database mount Tue Apr 24 16:57:07 2018 ORA-00202: controlfile: '/oracle/LED/sapdata1/cntrl/cntrlLED.dbf' Tue Apr 24 16:57:10 2018 ORA-205 signalled during: alter database mount... and oerr 205 give me this: $ oerr ora 205 00205, 00000, "error in identifying controlfile, check alert log for more info" // *Cause: The system could not find a controlfile of the specified name and // size. // *Action: Check that ALL controlfiles are online and that they are the same // files that the system created at cold start time. So I check the controlfiles: $ ls -l /oracle/LED/sapdata1/cntrl/cntrlLED.dbf /oracle/LED/sapdata2/cntrl/cntrlLED.dbf /oracle/LED/sapdata3/cntrl/cntrlLED.dbf -rw-r----- 1 oraled dba 29876736 Apr 23 23:19 /oracle/LED/sapdata1/cntrl/cntrlLED.dbf -rw-r----- 1 oraled dba 29876736 Apr 23 23:19 /oracle/LED/sapdata2/cntrl/cntrlLED.dbf -rw-r----- 1 oraled dba 29876736 Apr 23 23:19 /oracle/LED/sapdata3/cntrl/cntrlLED.dbf So I try and restore the controlfile. $ rman nocatalog RMAN> connect target sys/********@LED RMAN> startup nomount RMAN-06196: Oracle instance started Total System Global Area 1609240736 bytes Fixed Size 73888 bytes Variable Size 444837888 bytes Database Buffers 1163264000 bytes Redo Buffers 1064960 bytes RMAN> run { 2> allocate channel ch1 type disk; 3> allocate channel ch2 type disk; 4> allocate channel ch3 type disk; 5> allocate channel ch5 type disk; 6> allocate channel ch6 type disk; 7> 8> restore controlfile to '/apps6/backup/jimt.ctl'; 9> } RMAN-03022: compiling command: allocate RMAN-03023: executing command: allocate RMAN-08030: allocated channel: ch1 RMAN-08500: channel ch1: sid=10 devtype=DISK RMAN-03022: compiling command: allocate RMAN-03023: executing command: allocate RMAN-08030: allocated channel: ch2 RMAN-08500: channel ch2: sid=11 devtype=DISK RMAN-03022: compiling command: allocate RMAN-03023: executing command: allocate RMAN-08030: allocated channel: ch3 RMAN-08500: channel ch3: sid=12 devtype=DISK RMAN-03022: compiling command: allocate RMAN-03023: executing command: allocate RMAN-08030: allocated channel: ch5 RMAN-08500: channel ch5: sid=13 devtype=DISK RMAN-03022: compiling command: allocate RMAN-03023: executing command: allocate RMAN-08030: allocated channel: ch6 RMAN-08500: channel ch6: sid=14 devtype=DISK RMAN-03022: compiling command: restore RMAN-03022: compiling command: IRESTORE RMAN-03026: error recovery releasing channel resources RMAN-08031: released channel: ch1 RMAN-08031: released channel: ch2 RMAN-08031: released channel: ch3 RMAN-08031: released channel: ch5 RMAN-08031: released channel: ch6 RMAN-00571: =========================================================== RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS =============== RMAN-00571: =========================================================== RMAN-03002: failure during compilation of command RMAN-03013: command type: restore RMAN-03002: failure during compilation of command RMAN-03013: command type: IRESTORE RMAN-06003: ORACLE error from target database: ORA-01507: database not mounted ORA-06512: at "SYS.X$DBMS_RCVMAN", line 4461 ORA-06512: at line 1 RMAN-06097: text of failing SQL statement: begin dbms_rcvman . setDatabase ( upper ( :dbname:dbname_i ) , :rlscn , :rltime , :fhdbi:fhdbi_i ) ; end ; RMAN-06099: error occurred in source file: krmk.pc, line: 9196 I am stuck. Any ideas of what I should try next? Thanks JiM T