Bitcoin Forum

Other => Beginners & Help => Topic started by: Alanbtc on February 23, 2013, 05:04:12 PM



Title: Help with Wallets and transfer?
Post by: Alanbtc on February 23, 2013, 05:04:12 PM
I had a wallet with 101 btc and it had been left on my main computer online for over a year and never secured. Since it's worth is significant now I wanted to move it to a new address and not keep the wallet.dat online. So I:

1. Copied my old wallet.dat to usb key and deleted it from the bitcoin folder

2. Opened bitcoin-qt to create new address/wallet and then copied it's wallet.dat to usb and deleted it from bitcoin folder

3. Copied original wallet.dat back to bitcoin folder and transfered 1 btc to the new address as a test before moving everything.

4. Switched the wallet.dat files back so I could see the 1 btc in my new wallet. It worked.

5. Repeated the procedure to to transfer the remaining 100 btc.


When I did it the second time the balance showed 0 btc for a while. Then the 100 btc showed up. But the original 1 btc hasn't showed up. Even though the balance shows 101 btc on blockchain.info.

Does anyone have an idea what is going wrong?




Title: Re: Help with Wallets and transfer?
Post by: Stephen Gornick on February 23, 2013, 11:09:46 PM
Does anyone have an idea what is going wrong?

Chances are the transaction with 1.0 BTC hasn't yet confirmed -- perhaps no fee was paid so it will take a bit, maybe 24 hours or so.  Blockchain.info knows about the transaction because it was "online" at the time the transaction was broadcast.     Your second (new) wallet might not know of the transaction because the client with that wallet was not running when the transaction was broadcast.

The 100 BTC transaction probably has already confirmed and thus that's why the client with that second (new) wallet shows that only.

So check in Blockchain.info for the transaction that has the 1.0 BTC and see if it has any confirmations.

If it does, and your second (new) wallet still doesn't show it, make sure your client has connections and synchronization has completed.