Bitcoin Forum

Hello, guys. I have a two year old wallet that I recently found. It's corrupt but I know there's 3btc on it. I'm willing to pay you 1btc to fix that wallet. If anyone can help just reply here, do NOT pm me. I will only choose people with some rep around here.


This wallet was never on my current computer and the computer it was on is gone now. I know the password to it (this may be a copy of the wallet without the password so add it in and maybe it'll work?). You will only get paid once the job is done.

#1 make an extra backup
#2 use -salvagewallet [1]


[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Running_Bitcoin

You run commands by this right?

1. Go into CMD
2. Type in "cd C:\Program Files\Bitcoin"
3. bitcoin-qt.exe -salvagewallet

right?

Perhaps user Welsh will know something in order to help you out?

yep this should work

This is correct.  

Ad 2. Location might be different of course.

Good luck!  Let us know does it worked out for you.

If not you should follow MarcoTheMiner suggestion.

Welsh -  link to his profile  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=84521)
He's got good knowledge and understanding of wallet.dat recovery.

But -salvagewallet perhaps will do the job.

Kind regards.

better escrow the 1btc :P because its hard to trust a newbie

I might be able to help. So you are running Bitcoin Core, and the wallet is corrupt? What other details can you give?

Not to mention but i recommend using a escrow before you help him :)

ill help let me know if you still need it

Will message people about helping me later tonight. Gotta go to work now.

We do hope, you do come back for paying out people , who helped you.

His bitcoins are frozen in his damaged wallet .. how he can put them in escrow ?

once again, it easily to do that but how can i know you will get paid for us after doing this? any other colloteral?

You guys will in possession of the btc on the wallet. I'm the only one taking a risk here and clearly the people who didn't figure that out are not gonna be contacted cause they probably can't help me lol

Edit: The -salvagewallet command doesn't work so its gonna be more difficult than that.

All you need to do is get the private keys and load them into another wallet like multibit. If the privs are gone there is nothing you can do about it.

Might have been wiser not to wave a reward around, plenty greed around.

Anyway, I think the next step would be to get pywallet running and see what it can do for you. Since I never had to recover a corrput wallet Id say you either try it yourself or contact someone of your likeing.


A quick guide can be found here: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/17533/salvaged-possible-wallet-from-corrupt-hdd-now-what
pywallet thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.0
new pywallet thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=294439
pywallet source: https://github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet - its the correct one when it has >150 stars and >100 forks
DO NOT use the FAKE: sameas above/jj-jackjack/pywallet

Jeez guys, just help a member get back his wallet, if I found a solution I wouldn't asked to be paid. 1btc out of 3 is a lot.  You wouldn't be happy if your wallet was corrupted.

same id simply just ask for a donation :)

what error do see when you open the wallet? (core)

Contact Welsh, and send him the bitcoin wallet and private keys to work with. He is a trusted member, and has helped a lot of people on the forums with wallet issues. He  actually has his own thread for this.

What do you mean by that the command doesn't work?

Command not found or no effects on your corrupted .dat?

I don't understand what you are trying to say.

Wallet.dat contain private keys. (Encrypted or not)
All he need to send is a wallet.dat file (and pass phrase if wallet is encrypted) if we are talking about private keys.

If OP have his private keys  he don't need to do anything else than importing private keys to the wallet.
But his wallet.dat is corrupted - that's why he have no access to his private keys.

I had the same problem some month ago, i fixed it with ubuntu, i obtein privkeys and load it in other wallet, if you want help i can help you step by step, have you got other computer?

I don't have the problem, but I would like to know more about the steps you have taken.
How do you fix it with ubuntu? Just install the OS and run bitcoin core linux with your wallet.dat?

Yes this is indeed interesting :-)
Also interesting is why he will need another computer when you can install another OS on same machine.

Kind regards.

I messaged welsh so hopefully he can help. If he can't, I will message someone else.`

I've messaged Garvis some of the easier ways of a possible recovery, however I'm unsure of Garvis capabilities and whether he will understand it or know how to do it. I've sent him what I think will work without me having a closer look  at the physical file. If push comes to shove I'll ask whether he will be comfortable handing me the file so I can tinker around with it. Although , I'm hoping the methods which I sent him will work and he'll have no problem executing them.

Otherwise, I have advised Garvis to look for someone else as I don't want to keep him waiting if someone else can provide a solution. When, I'm back I'll be more than willing to take this under my flight and also listen  to anything anyone else has to say. Although I'm not back until Wednesday/Thursday so I won't be able to look at the wallet straight away.

Just like to thank everyone who recommended me by the way, it's much appreciated as I love to help others.

Welsh, I sent you the wallet. I don't mind waiting until you get back, that's fine with me.

Maybe the new bitcoin core wallet doesn't recognize your old wallet. (Maybe core developers changed the format of wallet.dat file).

I think you should find an old bitcoin-qt wallet (that released before).

Then you sould insert the wallet and dump private keys.

After dumping keys; you can add them to the newer version.

All the matter is your private keys.

Waste of time. Core developers hasn't changed the format of wallet.dat.

If your wallet.dat is not corrupted you can always use it in next/new version of Bitcoin qt/core.

I had some spare time tonight to setup the environment and started tinkering around with the file. Now, because we haven't got access to the computer it was originally stored on that limited some of the methods I could use quite significantly. I've gone through what I thought could be possible, however I haven't been successful and I've been working on it for a few hours now.  Although, I have gone through all I can think of at this time, I have been pretty busy so I'm hoping something is just slipping my mind at the time and I'll be able to think of something in the next few days.

If anyone decides to take this under their wing, feel free to contact me and I'll try and help in any way I can.

After you recovered and moved the coins to a safe wallet, could you send me the corrupted file? i want to test my skills :D

I got some time on my hands if you want to send me the file.