Identify the original interpretation
- Preserve raw files before opening them in tools that may rewrite metadata.
- Collect known names and text as reference samples.
- Distinguish DOS OEM, Windows ANSI and Unicode storage.
- Check DBF language-driver markers, database metadata and application locale.
- Test candidate code pages across many representative fields.
Mojibake can result from decoding bytes incorrectly and then saving the damaged characters. Repeated conversion cannot recover bytes already discarded.
Convert once, validate widely
Decode from the proven source encoding into Unicode, log substitutions, and verify names, sorting, search, exports and round trips. Keep the untouched source and transformation rule.
See DBF recovery, CSV conversion, migration services and the database pillar.