Having trouble starting my Oracle database I'm a programming student and I just started learning databases in college. However, everytime I try connecting to my databse in Oracle SQL Developer I have this message: 


  ORA-12505, TNS:listener does not currently know of SID given in
  connect descriptor.


After posting here, we came to the conclusion that the databse wasn't properly started. When I try to start it from the cmd I get those errors:

When I type "startup" in the SQL command prompt


  ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters ORA-00600: internal
  error code, arguments: [kspifisp:ksfdread_resilver], [0x000A9F388],
  [0x000A9F000], [512], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], []


When I type "select instance_name, status from v$instance;" in the SQL command prompt


  ERROR at line 1: ORA-01034: ORACLE not available Process ID: 0 Session
  ID: 0 Serial number: 0


I've seen that I could go into the net manager in "Programs > Oracle - HOME_NAME" but I don't have this in my programs list. Of course I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the database several times.

I've done the same installation on my PC at home and everything works fine I just need to make it work on my school laptop. I'm currently on Windows 10 installed on a Macbook. The database I installed is Oracle Database Express Edition (XE) Release 11.2.0.2.0 (11gR2).

Here is the 'init.XE.ora' file

SPFILE='C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server\dbs/spfileXE.ora'
If you are running XE on windows the folder delimiters have to be consistent
Instead of

SPFILE='C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server\dbs/spfileXE.ora'


Use

SPFILE='C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server\dbs\spfileXE.ora'


The best suggestion is from thatJeffSmith. Use the prebuilt VM's from Oracle in their VM product Virtual Box

Also you can see if your Oracle is successfully installed by finding services.msc and looking for a windows service with Oracle in the name.  There should be a listener and a database service. The database service has to be running before you can connect from your windows vm and the listener has to be up to connect from other devices.