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[vj.jain]

Taken from several blogs:

Enable Archive Log
First check if your database is in Archive mode
SQL> archive log list
Database log mode Archive Mode
Automatic archival Enabled
If you see Automatic archival is enabled that means database is in archive mode . If not then

SQL>SHUTDOWN
SQL>STARTUP MOUNT
SQL>ALTER DATABASE ARCHIVELOG;
SQL>ALTER DATABASE OPEN;
SQL>alter system set LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_1 =’LOCATION=/your/archive/location/arch’ scope=spfile;
SQL>shutdown immediate
SQL>Startup
Steps are for database 10g , These commands may vary according to your database version.
After that for Hotbackup
Change tablespace mode to begin backup like
alter tablespace tablespace_name begin backup; you have to do this for all tablespaces in your database except temporary tablespace (This can be tedious work if you are doing it manually so here is script to do so )

SQL>set head off
SQL>spool beginbackup.sql
SQL>select ‘alter tablespace ‘ tablespace_name ‘ begin backup;’ from dba_tablespaces;
SQL>spool off