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SyncToy v2.1

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(@shep47)
Posts: 51
Trusted Member
Topic starter
 

Hi all,

Does anyone have a solution to parse SyncToy (Microsofts free syncing tool) .DAT files? A sync process was carried out by the owner of a laptop and shortly afterwards some of the source data was wiped. The other medium in the sync is not available.

However, there are two 30MB DAT files present in the SyncToy folder that under a quick examination appear to contain lots of full path listings of files amongst other hex data. It would be good to parse these to adjudge what was potentially copied.

Many thanks

Shep

 
Posted : 16/10/2014 12:51 am
(@shep47)
Posts: 51
Trusted Member
Topic starter
 

Since my posting I've had success parsing these files (albeit only manually) and each file synched comes with it's creation time (source disk), last modification (source disk), file size and filename (plus some other data that I've not worked out yet). I'm working on an EnScript to parse these but if any one wants more information whilst searching this thread in the future please PM me.

Rgds

 
Posted : 19/10/2014 9:07 pm
(@laserquestwascool)
Posts: 1
New Member
 

I am facing the same situation as you were, i have all the large .dat files that SyncToy stores and they are teasing me with the small amount of human readable content which clearly shows a listing of the directories and files that were transferred.

I've done some work using the Sysinternals "strings" tool and NotePad++ which has yielded some more human readable content but i'm still not able to retrieve the really useful information like creation time, file size, etc.

If you have any information regarding the success you had parsing the files which could help me i'd really appreciate it.

Thanks

Ben

 
Posted : 25/08/2016 4:25 pm
jaclaz
(@jaclaz)
Posts: 5133
Illustrious Member
 

A very interesting topic. )

Well above my head/out of my league, unfortunately. (

I had a look around and found this
https://searchcode.com/codesearch/view/28100404/
https://crsyncfiles.codeplex.com/

It seems like all (or most) of the parsing functions for .bin and .dat files are there (to allow importing data from SyncToy or more generally Sync Framework).

The actual site is no more
https://crsyncfiles.codeplex.com/documentation
http//connectionroad.com/support/documentation/

and the tool is not cached in Wayback Machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20110209044807/http//connectionroad.com/products/crsyncfiles

Maybe from the above source someone might create a parser.

Possibly there is something in the Sync Framework SDK 2.1, also, but cannot say
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=23217

It seems like the good MS guys provide the libarries/API's/whatever but do not actually document the file formats.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd937442(v=sql.110).aspx
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb821355(v=sql.110).aspx

jaclaz

 
Posted : 26/08/2016 3:44 pm
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