title: Get existing arabic data from SQL Server database
body: <p>My boss asked to use an old SQL Server database and build a new application. When I open it, I found that all the Arabic data appear like this </p>
  
  <p><a href="http://i60.tinypic.com/14lraee.png" rel="nofollow">http://i60.tinypic.com/14lraee.png</a></p>
  
  <p>Firstname    |</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>ÚÌæØÚÌæØ     |</p>
  
  <p>Èä ÍãíÏÉ |</p>
  
  <p>ÈæÒÇäÉ   |</p>
  
  <p>ÈæÔÑæÑ   |</p>
  
  <p>the column type is already <code>nvarchar</code></p>
  
  <p>The old application use the same database and retrieve normally all the data arabic and non arabic i dont have the code source of this old application  </p>
  
  <p>How can I convert the existent data to appear normally ?</p>
  
  <p>I tried  both SQL command like </p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT UNICODE(@nstring) 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>or </p>
  
  <pre><code>NCHAR(UNICODE(@nstring)) 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and C# convert method like</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-us/49c55ea4-83c4-4b3b-81ef-d3a54ddf919e/how-do-i-convert-utf8-format-to-unicode-format?forum=netfxbcl" rel="nofollow">https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-us/49c55ea4-83c4-4b3b-81ef-d3a54ddf919e/how-do-i-convert-utf8-format-to-unicode-format?forum=netfxbcl</a></p>
  
  <p>I tried open it with SQL server management studio i tried changing character set , i tried changing the Collection SET but no luck !</p>