Bitcoin Forum

Hi Everyone!

It's to much to say even that I am new in this... i barely have a basic ideea about what Bitcoin or Bitcoin trading means. But I have a problem.

In 2009, when bitcoin started, i was a student and browsing online I ran into an website that promised that if i install and run a software on my computer i will be rewarded with some virtual coins.  I found out these days that I actually caught the begining of the bitcoin....

As i was a student, living in a room with another 2 .. and as computer in that time was always on.. i thought i have nothing to lose and i downloaded and run the software for digging. It was something new and i took it as a game.

The computer ran non stop, more than one year, untill it crashed - was nothing unexepected as 23 hours out of 24 someone was playing Heroes or Starcraft on it :)))... So probably few bitcoins were mined in that period.. i never checked and i forgot about this untill the other days when i red more about bitcoin and i understood that this is what i was "digging" 8 years ago.

My problem is that i don't know how this is working.. I always keep all my old drives, so i still have the old drive from that computer (most probably is fucked up...). I don't remember any password or something .. i don't even remember if it was needed to have one..

Can anyone help me and tell me if i have any chances to recover what i mined then and how should i do this?

Thanks in advance for all you help!

First thing you want do to is check if you have a file named "wallet.dat", from there you can work out to see if you got some! Good luck man! Hope you find it!

Do you know how to do basic forensic analysis on hard drives?

If so, dig the wallet file in the old HDD, install an old version of bitcoin QT, load the wallet, export private keys, load private keys in updated wallet, be rich and tip me some coins. :D

@felco @pedrog Thanks a lot guys! After what you are saying here, i see a chance  :) .. I ll take the drive to a pro to find that file. I'll let you know what i found!

Be VERY careful!  You need to either have the pro show you what to do while you look for the file, or you need to trust that pro VERY MUCH.

If you were mining in 2009 24 hours per day for a whole year, it is very likely that there are more than 1000 BTC in that wallet.dat file.  If the  "pro" finds it and can hide that fact from you, then he can:

• Copy the file
• Lie to you, telling you he didn't find anything
• Sell those 1000 BTC (or more) for $2,000,000 (or more)

That's a lot of temptation.  There are a lot of people who aren't trustworthy enough to give them something worth more than $2 million and trust them to tell you the truth about what its worth.

There is a strong possibility of such malpractice and thus OP should be extremely careful. The first thing to do is to somehow (with extreme precautions) take the backup of his current drive and then to recover the wallet.dat file. The most important part will be the trust and I would suggest OP, forget about it and do not trust anyone. Invite the expert at your home instead of taking your drive to his shop and observe his every move. Good luck for your mission.

You don't have to take your drive to a shop....You can do it yourself.  Just slave it to your existing system...it's as easy as plugging in, changing the jumper pin to slave, and re-setting your bios.  There's youtube tutorials....I wouldn't take it to a professional because they will more than likely know exactly how to trick you out of your coin....