Bitcoin Forum

Folks,

I would like your thoughts on how to recover from a dead pc with your bitcoins on it. Ultimately I would like to have a step by step guide for recovery of your coins if you lose your HDD etc.

Hypothetical situation is the hard drive is toast(No recovery possible). Assume Bitcoin-qt wallet. Feel free to discuss other options though.

1. What should I do before this happens?
2. I have my new pc and wallet installed, What next?
3. Is windows backup of a wallet enough?
4. Can I have more than 1 copy of an active wallet? I know I can have multiple backups.
5. How do private keys work in this situation? Can I use this to recover if I have no backup of the wallet itself?


Please Discuss.

Print your private keys out onto a paper wallet, and if the worst happens import them into a new empty wallet on a new computer. You can use a private key to recover the bitcoins held in an address even if you have not backed up the wallet.dat containing that address.

Create backups on a regular basis.  At least every 100 transactions, preferably more frequently than that.  Store at least one recent backup in a secure location that is not in the same building as the Bitcoin-qt wallet.


Recover your most recent good backup:
If the new wallet has no bitcoins and you haven't given any of its addresses to anyone, then replace the %APPDATA%\Bitcoin\wallet.dat file with your backup
If you have already made use of the new wallet, then you'll need to come up with a plan to maintain both wallets or to merge them by importing the necessary private keys from one into the other.


I'd be a bit concerned about Windows creating a backup while the file was in the process of being updated.  This could potentially leave it in an unusable state.  Windows backup is probably fine, but personally, I'd use the "Backup Wallet" function built into the wallet on a regular basis.


It is a bad idea to try to run multiple instances of a single Bitcoin Core wallet right now.  They aren't designed for that and, if you don't know exactly what you're doing and how to manually synchronize the wallet data between them they will eventually get out of sync.  This will cause unusual and unexpected behavior, which is likely to lead to mistakes that will result in permanent loss of bitcoins.


Only if you have all the private keys to all the addresses that have any bitcoins associated with them.  Bitcoin-qt (also known as Bitcoin Core) creates random new private keys and addresses for you without telling you about them every time you send a transaction.  If you don't have the private keys to those additional addresses, then you will not have access to much of your bitcoins. The wallet backup handles this by pre-generating the next 100 addresses that the wallet will use any time the wallet is unlocked.  Therefore, the 100 addresses used after a backup (and the associated private keys) are included in the backup. This is why I suggest creating a new backup AT LEAST every 100 transactions.  Since it is possible to lose a backup, for a backup to become damaged, or for you to lose track of how many transactions you've done since the last backup, it is better to create backups more often than that and the keep the most recent few.

buy a cheap & secure hardware wallet:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=899253.0

You should definitely keep backups or paper wallets for the majority of your bitcoin storage. You could use a USB drive to store backups of your wallet file but would need to be sure to this fairly often to ensure it is up to date. It is probably smart to store the majority of your funds in cold storage with a paper wallet stored in a safe location that is immune to the elements of nature.

Use a client that you can recover from a seed. If your comp dies or your wallets become corrupted or whatever you can still get your coins back. Of course you should also make several copies of your wallet.dat. As others have suggested you could print or write your private keys down but be careful that nobody has access to them or you write them down properly.

Yeah that is true. A client like this, called a Deterministic wallet ( https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Deterministic_wallet ) could be quite useful in this sort of situation.  Electrum is one of the more popular bitcoin clients like this.

You should use a very safe wallet, such as Armory. You could also choose this way, put your bitcoins in many different wallet (Offline Wallet, Online Wallet, & Paper Wallet). So when your PC dead(which will take damage on your Offline Wallet), you still stored another bitcoins in another wallet. So your loss would be reduced

I always do regular backups once every 10 transactions. Maybe I'm a paranoid? Well it's better to be safe than sorry after all. Also, having multiple copies of your wallet.dat and keeping them on hardware that isn't connected to the internet will probably help you in case you toast your HDD or your storage where you use your bitcoin wallet. Lastly, paper wallets are great for keeping your balance and your wallet as a whole. Just store it safely without anyone knowing where you'd placed them.

-edit-
corrected spelling errors.

Why do you only have 1 copy of your BTC...

Why do you have 5 copies all with in 3km of each other?

YOu should have like 20 copies all over the place..  This is what I have done.. I am like Voldemort with the horcruxes.

Encrypt it and give out to all your friends...  Hack my 25+ char pass, good luck.

I'll try to do that. :) They would definitely find a way to crack the password to get the money in there. ^_^ Also, it is a good way for them to know bitcoins because they will surely research on that matter.

Hate to hear this happened to you. This happened to me a couple months back As long as you have backed it up you should be fine.

How in the hell would they crack it when even the NSA can't crack a +15 char BIP38...


As for recovering the HD... most computer stores can do it but you better not have anything Illegal on it you'll find the police will be there when you show up for your HD.

The only thing that helps are paper wallets, and what I mean to say with that is, you should create paper wallets with the purpose of putting those coins into cold storage... Just leave them as it is...

And the ones that you want to use, you can do using online wallets such as blockchain.info (always have the only amount in such wallets which you actually want on hands to be used and not the whole coins)...

This 10000%

1) Backup of private key. Write it in paper or in stone or store it in 65 different pen drives or whatever
2) If possible use new addresses, if you really need you can import the private key by typing it.
3) prob no against hardware failure
4) Yes, just be careful with accidental double spending
5)the private key is the backup of the wallet ???

I prepare brain wallet, 100+ characters, list of all personal words for you so it's easy to remember by you that cannot be searched on the internet.
So your bitcoin cold storage address is always in you.

You should be doing everything you possibly can to protect your coins and make sure they're backed up with numerous failsafes. Remember, one could fail so make sure you have a different option to regain access to your coins. It's always better to be safe than sorry especially with bitcoins.

+1

5 USB key
2 hard drive
and 1 regular email storage (no, it's not the cloud ...)

email is the cloud, since it is stored in a server that is not under your control and you need internet to access it.

And be be compromised, like the online wallets

If your passphrase has never touched the web.. I really doubt anyone is getting your stuff. A 15+ char pass using BIP38 is considered un breakable..   Take my encrypted private keys, good luck with them.

well, i don't have mentionned that it's an open email server ...  ;D  ;)

if you have hdd problems, try using blockchain.info to store your coins :D

use blockchain.info

use trezor

use paper wallet

backup the wallet.dat

give the private keys to your sister in case you die