Bitcoin Forum

Hi, looked around a bit but couldn't find an answer so decided to post. Found an old wallet.dat file that I would like to restore. I downloaded bitcoin core 0.19.0.1 from the website and waited for it to sync the blockchain. Closed bitcoin core and replaced the wallet.dat file with my old wallet(from 2013). Saw an error message that said to run bitcoin-qt with --reindex command. I did but now everytime I run btcoin-qt I get a warning confirming date and time are correct(laptop battery is dead so sometimes windows messes up the clock when rebooting but it is correct when I run bitcoin-qt). Every time I see this clock message it seems the syncing is stopped and freezes.

Just before it shows the clock warning and freezes I am able to go to the transactions page and see only 5 transactions that when totaled leave an amount of btc still on the wallet (though main page says balance is 0). How can I recover these coins?

How about the timezone? Have you set it correctly together with the date and time?
Because it will also reset if your laptop's CMOS battery is dead.

Make sure that it's correct as well.

Thanks for the reply. Timezone and clock are correct, I rebooted and put correct time zone and then correct time. Then I open bitcoin-qt and same thing happens. It freezes when the clock warning shows up.

I closed bitcoin-qt deleted the wallet started bitcoin-qt again. Creates a new wallet.dat file and still get the clock warning but it does not freeze the program, it starts syncing fine. I then close bitcoin-qt and put back the old backup wallet and the issue comes back when the clock warning shows up. What could be the issue?

Well, just try to download the Electrum wallet and recover your old wallet through that kind of wallet.
I found a thread that similar to your problem and I hope you will recover it soon, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2184037.0.
And try to do this, load up your wallet file in bitcoin core, and then next go to help debug window, and then console, and then type in dumpwallet. Indeed, probably the thread that I provided will help you a lot, just refer to that.

Personally, I'd give up on using Bitcoin Core as your wallet at this point, as it seems that your current hardware is not going to be able to run it reliably.

Use the dumpwallet command in Bitcoin Core console to dump out all your private keys... then import those private keys into another wallet like Electrum (https://electrum.org/#download) That should enable you to recover the coins from the keys/addresses that are currently in your wallet.dat

Then, if you want to continue using Bitcoin Core as your wallet, you'll need to source more reliable hardware, otherwise you might continue to run into issues like this... or you can look at other wallet options: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

Did you try pywallet?

You can download here https://github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet

You would be able to import the wallet.dat and export data like keys or adresses without having to download or sync the blockchain.

Then use electrum https://electrum.org/#download and import the keys.

Good luck!

/KX

That is not needed in this particular case. If he can open Bitcoin Core he can use the dumpwallet command even if Bitcoin Core is not fully synced.
He should be able to save a text file containing all his private keys with that command.

@OP
Follow HCP's advice above.