Does anybody know...

[ChloeAnn]

...how to extract the .DAT files from the PC game My Little Pony: Friendship Gardens? The sound is bugged on my game, so I'm trying to extract the VOICE.DAT file. I've tried a bunch of different programs, and nothing's working

[hathorcat]

I think you ll need to hope for someone very technically capable for some advice...

Do you just no longer wish to listen to the sounds on the game?

[ChloeAnn]

No, I'm trying to figure out what the butterfly is saying, because I can only catch the very last part of her sentence in some places

[Opalescence]

The thing with .dat files is that you usually need a specific tool depending on its content.
Since it's named Voice.dat, I assume it contains some sort of audio.
Therefore you need an audio exctractor like those you use to rip the tracks off your CDs. Make sure it can handle .dat
You'l see that when you select the source file for extraction nad there's options like

AVI, DivX, Xvid, WMV, ASF, MPEG or in your case, DAT.

[moonflower]

Oh, that butterfly is so annoying!

[Shaiyeh]

I have played friendship gardens, but this discussion, and Moonflower writing that it's annoying, just makes me think of Navi...
"HEY! HEY LISTEN!!" 8D

lol.

I hope you can get the sound files to work!

[Stuntmang]

The problem is that .dat tends to not be a standardized file format. It's likely encrypted in some way and only the programmers know the key to unencrypt it. Your best bet is to Google around and see if anyone's gotten files from that particular game ripped. If this is an earlier game (90s, early 00s), you'll have much better luck.

[moonflower]

If you have no luck you could try YouTube.

[hathorcat]

No, I'm trying to figure out what the butterfly is saying, because I can only catch the very last part of her sentence in some places

Oh thats a nuisance! Its been a very very long time since I played this game so I am not sure if its a common fault...I do know as a game it turns up for about £3ish in a lot of places in case you need to replace your version.

[gabumon]

you could try opening Notepad.exe and the from
that program browse for the dat file.  it might have gobbly gook, but the first dozen letters / numbers might give a clue to what format it is.  (IOW notepad might show a header)

[Emfen]

I do know someone extracted audio from a game in a similar way. This video shows how to by using GCFScape to extract sound.
I'm not entirely great at such things, but I often use programs that can read games .dat files. May it be for solve a bug or to just to fiddle around with settings.
Hope it helped a bit!

[ChloeAnn]

What sort of programs?

[gabumon]

If you're game you can post the first few characters as seen in notepad I'll google it for you. :3

[Emfen]

What sort of programs?

.dat reading programs.

.DAT files are used by programmers to store any kind of data.

.dat is like an archive, which the .exe file need to have in order to function properly. So it would be like using an archive extractor for .zip or .rar, but this program("GCFScape") reads the .dat and translated the encrypted data into readable files.
Looked around the web and some sites stated that you should be able to open it with media programs(i.e. media player), but if you just want the audio I suggest you look at the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqsVCj0tNZg) as it actually links you to the software used to extract the sound files.
The directory would be C: > Hasbro Interactive > My Little Pony > Data (got the game myself)

I don't know how the content on the cd looks at the moment sadly. It should also work if you stick the cd in a freestyle and play it, first track might be silent but skip that one then and the sound should play. I did that once.