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DAT file clean up

  • 11-04-2008 6:31pm
    #1
    chris85
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,502 ✭✭✭


    I have two .DAT file which i needed to open in Excel. The first one opened no problem by opening up in Excel and seperating columns easy. The second one opens and just shows a load of symbols and stuff like its full of junk or corrupted. Its a really important file i need as its full of data sets that i need.

    Any ideas on how to fix it???


Comments

  • #2
    chris85
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,502 ✭✭✭chris85


    Bump, any ideas guys?


  • #3
    trout
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,957 ✭✭✭trout


    chris85 wrote: »
    Bump, any ideas guys?

    sounds like the second file is a binary file, and not a text/flat file like the first one.

    How were the .DAT files generated ?


  • #4
    chris85
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,502 ✭✭✭chris85


    trout wrote: »
    sounds like the second file is a binary file, and not a text/flat file like the first one.

    How were the .DAT files generated ?

    the files were just generated from a .MRD (material raw data) file from an experiment that was being carried out. This is the data from it.

    Any way you know of changing it to text?


  • #5
    Sherifu
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,727 ✭✭✭✭Sherifu


    Get notepad++ and open the file. You can switch to diffeent views.[binary, hex, text, etc.]


  • #6
    chris85
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,502 ✭✭✭chris85


    Sherifu wrote: »
    Get notepad++ and open the file. You can switch to diffeent views.[binary, hex, text, etc.]

    Tried using notepad++ but couldnt do much, not really sure what to do with it but was switching between different language and not much happenin


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  • #7
    trout
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,957 ✭✭✭trout


    chris85 wrote: »
    the files were just generated from a .MRD (material raw data) file from an experiment that was being carried out. This is the data from it.

    Any way you know of changing it to text?

    Before you do anything else, please make sure you have good backups of the 2 files, and put the backups in a safe place.

    If the second DAT file isn't flat/text ... it will be hard to advise on how to convert it, and you run the risk of corrupting the file if you mess with the format.

    How were the files generated ? Can you tell us what application or system is being used ?

    There is also the possibility the second file is corrupt in some way.
    Is it possible to export the MRD file again from the original source / controlling application ?
    What options do you have here other than DAT (look for CSV)

    From the post above, where you mention multiple data sets, I would imagine the second file is in a proprietary format, not readily understood by Excel.


  • #8
    chris85
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,502 ✭✭✭chris85


    trout wrote: »
    Before you do anything else, please make sure you have good backups of the 2 files, and put the backups in a safe place.

    If the second DAT file isn't flat/text ... it will be hard to advise on how to convert it, and you run the risk of corrupting the file if you mess with the format.

    How were the files generated ? Can you tell us what application or system is being used ?

    There is also the possibility the second file is corrupt in some way.
    Is it possible to export the MRD file again from the original source / controlling application ?
    What options do you have here other than DAT (look for CSV)

    From the post above, where you mention multiple data sets, I would imagine the second file is in a proprietary format, not readily understood by Excel.

    Yeah have the backups on my USB stick as well as at the source computer and i think one other computer. Quite possibly on a DVD disc as I backed up all college files today onto DVD disc.

    It may be corrupt but I hope not. I am going to go to the source computer tomorrow and check out the source file in the. I am going to try extract the DAT file again and see what happens.


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