Bitcoin Forum

  Yesterday I did a big dummy.

  My PC has windows 8 and I've been having trouble with it so I decided to re-install it. I didn't think about my wallet which was a new wallet, but the day before I

transferred my almost 10 bitcoins from another PC to this wallet. It had never been backed up.

  I have been reading and went to windows.old, found bitcoin QT and started it. when it finished loading all I got was an empty wallet. I've tried to load wallet.dat

and still get a new,empty bitcoin wallet.

  I have the bitcoin address from the old wallet when I sent the bitcoins. Is there a way to use that address to recover those bitcoins?

  Any help would be appreciated, this just devastates me, I've always been careful with my coins...must be getting old, brain farts and all.

You have had a 10 BTC wallet and never backed it up?

Well - for your sake I hope you do have a backup which maybe you've missed (scan for wallet.dat files for a start) - but if you really didn't keep a backup and have lost the wallet then I am sorry to say that your BTC has "gone to Satoshi".

  I have read people say all you need is an address to use your bitcoins, is there a place to find transactions with the address the coins were sent to?

The address that BTC was sent to is not going to help you as you need the "private keys" (which is what your wallet *holds* for you).

Without the private keys you will not be able to recover any BTC.

No. You need your private key to use the bitcoins.

I don't use windows since years, but this "windows.old" makes me wonder: does it mean windows did a backup of some files itself?
I suspect it has just moved the old stuff to a folder "windows.old", and bitcoin-qt does not find it so it creates a new wallet. If this is the case you just need to start bitcoin-qt and indicate the location of your old data directory with "-datadir".

Don't want to insist on your avoidable loss, but it might be useful for others so I'll say it anyway: never send funds to a wallet that has not been backed-up prior to the transfer. Don't even wait for the funds to appear to back it up.

No, you don't start bitcoin from windows.old. The install location is not where the wallet is stored. You have to go to "X:\windows.old\Users\your user name\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin", and find the "wallet.dat". Then you copy it to "%appdata%\bitcoin\" and open bitcoin-qt.

  Ok I found C:\windows.old\Users\my user name\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin  I see the wallet.dat file where do I find %appdata% to copy it to?

C:\Users\User Name\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin?
Alternatively, start bitcoin-qt with "-datadir C:\windows.old\Users\your user name\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin".
Given the type of question you ask, I advise you to use an online wallet. Likely you will make a mistake again if you keep dealing locally, all by yourself, with 10BTC.

   Tried that but datadir C:\windows.old\Users\your user name\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin but it wont open. I think I may have shot myself in the foot because when I started

I opened windows.old, users, then I may have unzipped the bitcoin 8.1 which asks to overwrite files.

 I have several rigs mining and the one I had the wallet with the bitcoins I had to work on, so I always? send the bitcoins to one of my other rigs wallets. Well I forgot

(was pissed) after the 2 hours of crap I just finished, this PC started freezing up again, so I through in the disc and....Oh well, a learning experience I didn't need. 10

bitcoins is not a deadly loss to me, but it really sucks. I know better

This must be the binary files of bitcoin-qt. The wallet is in a different place, there is no reason the old one was overwritten unless you did it yourself.
Just do what grue suggested, take the old wallet.dat file, move it to the new location (NOT the one of bitcoin-qt), that's all you need to do to get your 10BTC. If you really don't care, well do it and send them to me  ;)

Did you change "your user name" to your actual user name?  Or make a backup of that wallet.dat you found in the windows.old and copy it to your new appdata folder.

 I still don't know what %appdata%\bitcoin means or where to find it...

  I did change the user name on the new install, but after I signed in to microcrap it changed to the old user name. The windows.old users has the old user name with it.

 Windows 8 sucks, I've had freezing issues since I installed it. should have just stuck with 7. If anyone wants to try to find them I can work out a deal. I dont know how to

connect with anyone on here

Hit Windows-Key r
Type cmd in the box.  Hit enter.
type:

copy %appdata%\Bitcoin\wallet.dat %appdata%\Bitcoin\wallet.dat.bak
copy C:\windows.old\Users\my user name\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\wallet.dat %appdata%\Bitcoin\wallet.dat

replace "my user name" with your old user name
Then run the bitcoin-qt program normally

 
  I did the cmd when I entered both of those lines they opened Bitcoin-qt which has 0 bitcoins and is new. They're gone aren't they?

Rerun bitcoin-qt with the following parameter "-rescan"

  I dont know how to 
Rerun bitcoin-qt with the following parameter "-rescan"

  whre do I put -rescan?

Press Windows-Key r

Then write "C:\<all the path to bitcoin-qt> -rescan" and press enter.
To find out what is the path to bitcoin-qt if you don't know it, you can right click on the bitcoin-qt executable and select "properties".

All this from memory, I don't use windows anymore since almost a decade.  :)

  That didn't work, cant find file. I noticed the bitcoin file in windows.old is dated 6/17/2013. I did the re-instal of windows yesterday

Try:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe -rescan

I sent you a PM, worst case I can do it for you, but you'll have to trust me  :)

PM (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=pm)'d you as well.. would be glad to help..

or if you want to have a go, i'd suggest running a search of the whole machine for wallet.dat and hope that one turns up with a pre-re-install modified date, copy that for backup, and attempt to recover by loading it into the new install and re-scanning

All this can be done without exposing the private keys.

If you're pretty sure the .old copy was overwritten somehow, copy it elsewhere for backup anyways, right-click the original for Properties, and see if you have "Previous Versions" you can restore. This feature may or may not have been set up automatically..

1. open c:\windows.old\ with windows explorer
2. in the search box to the right, type in "wallet.dat"
3. copy (don't cut) all matching files to a folder on your desktop
4. open windows explorer and type in "%appdata%\bitcoin\" in the address bar
5. if wallet.dat already exists, make a backup of it
6. delete everything in the folder
7. paste one of the wallet file from step 3
8. start bitcoin-qt, check if there is non zero balance. unconfirmed balance is OK. you do not need to rescan
9. repeat step 6 to 8 until you found your coins.

If you need additional help, I can VNC/teamviewer.

You might consider trying this:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=25091.0

It's recommended though to force shutdown the computer immediately for highest chance of success so temporary files aren't deleted. If you've shutdown and restarted several times it might be harder. Read it and good luck

 
  grue, I did what you said there were two wallet.dat files I put them in folders on desktop,  saved the wallet.dat file in %appdata%\bitcoin to flashdrive and deleted.

added wallet.dat file and put each one from desktop, both bitcoin qt wont start now  says wallet.dat corrupt,salvage failed.

tried to install original wallet.dat from flashdrive and same result...

   I appriciate everyones help today, thanks.....I got to go until tommorrow, check back then.

It sounds like you misread the directions. It's very unlikely for multiple copies of wallet.dat to all be corrupt, and even less likely for a fresh, working backup to be corrupt as well. I can use teamviewer and attempt a fix, but if you think you followed the instructions correctly, it's best to check this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=25091.0

   Thanks to all you good people that have tried to help, I got my bitcoins back..I am so happy. Special thanks to binaryFate.

   It's gonna be a great day!!

Glad I could help. Don't just be careful in the future, be paranoid with backups  :)