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Properly Opening a .dat File: Need Help
Professor Snugglesworth
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I was asked by a friend to figure out a way to read a document sent to him via Dropbox by another friend. The document is supposed to contain important written text, but it was sent as a .dat file. Extensive Googling suggests to try renaming it to different formats, such as .txt, .doc, etc.
I've tried several of these, but the text keeps coming out as gibberish. Here's an example of one string:
Seems to be a mix of different language characters, and Google Translate won't turn it into anything coherent. More research says the best thing to do is find out what program Friend B used to create the .dat, but he's currently away from town, and so far attempts to communicate with him have been null. I even took the file to Best Buy's Geek Squad, and they suggested to try AutoCAD. I downloaded the trial software, but no luck on that end either.
So I was wondering if there was any program or method to either decode what's on the .dat, or determine what program is required to view the information properly.
I've tried several of these, but the text keeps coming out as gibberish. Here's an example of one string:
`ﾟH�#・・｡5ﾀ・・・�.�;p�у�*冏g出・┨K-/ｰL・г巵"鬯T(・Тｬ{xｺtулf<5ﾝ3ﾕ・┓跌ｶｪu壷・・ﾝUJｵﾊﾌ&・・驤ﾙﾐ・・tﾚXｬ(�・┘ｿIyﾙX・�ｼvﾝ�=・Ш|ｭﾈ鸚u・Жｱﾙ・ТｴНﾂ・・
Seems to be a mix of different language characters, and Google Translate won't turn it into anything coherent. More research says the best thing to do is find out what program Friend B used to create the .dat, but he's currently away from town, and so far attempts to communicate with him have been null. I even took the file to Best Buy's Geek Squad, and they suggested to try AutoCAD. I downloaded the trial software, but no luck on that end either.
So I was wondering if there was any program or method to either decode what's on the .dat, or determine what program is required to view the information properly.
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If it's definitely text and not a binary file (.dat is a generic file extension for, well, data), the text is likely encoded in a way your text editors didn't recognise. What programs did you use to open the file?
Notepad
Notepad +
MS Word
MS Excel
MS Outlook
AutoCAD
Adobe Reader
Internet Explorer
Mozilla Firefox
I'm not too familiar with binary files and if this is in fact one, but wouldn't the data show up as binary code? Might be a dumb question for experts, all I know is this is supposed to be something that a person should be able to read. Would've been nice if Friend B mentioned how you were supposed to read it.
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He also responded today and said that the file was created using Unix. I never used Unix before, so I need to research how/if I can use it with Windows 7.
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edit: speaking of hex, you can try and determine the file type by its first line of hex characters (called magic number - http://www.garykessler.net/library/file_sigs.html).
Which, according to that chart:

n/a Byte-order mark for 8-bit Unicode Transformation Format
(UTF-8) files. (See the Unicode Home Page.)
Not sure if that bring me any closer to cracking this thing.
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At this point it's my only option left: even had a Geek Squad agent remotely access my PC (a procedure that made me feel rather dirty inside), and he couldn't figure it out either.
So this guy needs to either re-send the file into something Windows users can access, or divulge what specific program he used to open it.
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Have the guy export the data into txt format instead of dat. This guy is apparently a fucking moron.