Bitcoin Forum

Hello bitcoiners!  ;D
I have had a wallet on my computer a while ago(about 6 months ago) and one day my computer decided to make an update. Something went wrong in that update and I had to reinstall windows. Most of my programs had been saved, but I could not find my wallet information. Making a long story short, I have stumbled across my wallet number and have a few mBTC on it which worth about 150$. The wallet is 1LDNLNYjTJT2nixzc7wqHwpc6aP9nNcYBZ . The problem is I cannot access the wallet as I do not remember which platform I have used. (I think the name of the wallet was something close to electrum wallet) I probably would be able to guess my password as I have changed it from default and made my own. (so I can remember). My question is how do I gain the full access to my wallet with the information that I have?

You probably can't... especially if it was Electrum wallet. With Electrum you would either need the wallet file and password... or the 12 word recovery seed to be able to restore your wallet.

This is the only way that you would be able to get access to the private key that belongs to your address... as the "wallet number" you have is simply a Bitcoin Address.

Is there any possible way to search all the hard drive for such a "wallet file"?

There are a lot of apps that attempt to recover lost files... the problem is you don't know what sort of wallet you were using... Bitcoin Core defaults to "wallet.dat", Electrum doesn't use file extensions etc...

Try software like "easeus" or "recuva"... a google search for "Data Recovery Software" should get you on the right path.

In any case, if you want to increase the odds of recovery and prevent the data from being overwritten and lost... you should immediately stop using the hard drive that your wallet was on. Make a clone image of the drive and work on the image rather than the drive itself.

Ok so I have found 2 files with the name wallet.dat and they seen to be created around the same time I used my btc.
How would I get my information from the .dat file to access my btc?

You can try installing Bitcoin Core and copying the wallet.dat file into your AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin directory (if you're on Windows).
You'll probably need to sync the client (which requires downloading 100 GB of data), and then you'll be able to access your coins.

Did you reformat the hd during the reinstallation of windows, or just reinstall the operating system?

I have sent my laptop to my buddy he got it going for me. I do not think he reformat the HD as I had a folder that was stated "old windows" with most of my info on it.

Is there any other way to search for my seed or private keys? Are they stored under a different name file? I do have about 1/3 of the block chain downloaded on my laptop ( from when I wanted to start mining, 6 months ago.)  but I really do not want to download the rest 2/3 of it.

If you sort of remember the password, download Electrum and guess a password or two. If you don't have the Electrum seed, .dat file, or remember your password I'm afraid it's gone forever

I do have a .dat file and could try to guess a few passwords. My question is how do I open a .dat file in electrum?

You can export the private keys without downloading the blockchain.
In Core: Click help -> 'debug window' -> 'console' tab
If you wallet is encrypted, unlock it by typing  walletpassphrase "your wallet password" 600
Type 'dumpwallet privatekeys.txt ' without the single-quotes

There will be a privatekeys.txt file in the wallet folder containing your private keys.

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay......

After about 2 days of searching I found my wallet details in the appdata/electrum/wallets recovered the wallet I had back in jun 2017.
Now I have full access to my wallet.

Thank you all good people for helping when in need!