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I have a Seagate external hard drive and recently transferred the contents of my old computer to this drive in order to transfer them to my new computer. When I try to access the files from the external hard drive all I get are dat files e.g. IMG0002 which I cannot open. I tried downloading a free file viewer in the hopes that I could view files but no luck. Does anyone have any suggestions. The old computer ran Windows XP and this new one runs Windows 7. Thank you.

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Hovsep A
2014-03-14 20:57:27
can't open .dat files (windows 7) this file is a back up for my old desktop that has a maleware problem. how do i find out what program created file? http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-files/cant-open-dat-files-windows-7-this-file-is-a-back/48abc2e0-6acf-427d-9be7-2afc3b06890e
Bruce E
2014-03-14 00:49:49
It sounds like you did a backup of the Windows XP computer using Microsoft's backup utility. To restore it under Windows 7, you need to download an update from Microsoft to have a compatible utility to restore those backups. It also works for backups made by Windows Vista.