Bitcoin Forum

My computer did a factory reset and erased my files including my bitcoin core.  Do I have to do data recovery through some company to get this back if possible?  Or is there another way to do this?  I didn't back up my private key. I have a desktop with a solid state drive. Thanks for help.

How much did you lose?

I am 90 percent sure it is gone.

But only 90 percent sure.

As I don't know if your files are really erased

I have a few btc on the bitcoin core.  I ran factory reset and did not install any other programs once this was completed. I'm not sure if files are erased I have not ran a recovery program.    Is there any specific file I will be looking for to recover my bitcoin core?  Or my private key?

You should be looking for wallet.dat file, also use a software like EaseUs recovery.. it is your only chance.. I don't get one thing, why do people don't back up their seeds . It hardly takes 5 minutes to write them down.. anyway good luck with the recovery..

I found the wallet.dat file what is next step to take?

Test if it's corrupted by installing Bitcoin core and opening the wallet.dat file with it. You can do that after installing Bitcoin core by opening a folder called Bitcoin using the instructions in the quote. After the folder is open you should be able to see a file named wallet.dat inside it. Replace that file with the wallet.dat you recovered and start Bitcoin core. If it's not corrupt Bitcoin core should show addresses from the wallet.dat in its GUI.

wow you are lucky if you get back and the file is not corrupted. Make sure you are restoring on another computer and not overwriting the source disk. Also try to recover it yourself before going to a service. They may as well take your coins.

+1

You shouldn't run an operating system on the computer you lost the coins on. That could overwrite the bytes containing your coin's.

Put that computer's hard drive in an external USB case.

Even if your wallet.dat file is corrupt there is still a chance you can recover your coins.

Very lucky indeed even myself didnt expect for this thing to happen on which a factory reset pc didnt lost all the files on previous settings. I dont know whats exactly op did but for sure it involved hdd recovery. To avoid these things better to secure those wallet.dat or any private keys on a offline state.
By the way, issue have been resolved better to lock this topic.

ok file did not work... I am going to try and use the hex editor to find the private keys. My wallet is encrypted with a passphrase (password) hopefully this will not be a huge problem but I do know it.  Basically I had a large transfer recently which mainly is the balance of the account.  Am I looking for a public key which follows by a private key eventually?  If I know the address of the transfer does that help?  Do I need only one private key to recover the lost bitcoins?    Any help is appreciated.

Try using btcrecover (can anyone link the topic?).

this is for finding the password right? I already know my password just need to get my wallet/privatekeys back I think?

It's for extracting the wallet from an HDD image.

Get another hard drive, make an image of the one that you have in the computer and run btcrecover against it to find the wallet.
Read this: https://github.com/gurnec/btcrecover/blob/master/TUTORIAL.md#btcrecover-tutorial.

And DO NOT USE THE COMPUTER WITH THE WALLET FILE ON BEFORE YOU RECOVER IT.

ok I did this I made an imagine using another hard drive and yes I have not even booted the original drive.  Also I have a ssd this shouldn't make a difference I assume?  Will try this tonight.

"It is designed for the case where you already know most of your password" this is what it says in description.
Sorry if this is a dumb question but when it says password what is this talking about the encryption password I set up?  If so that's not my problem I cant find the wallet.dat file that also looks like is needed for this to work?  I am running hex editor searching  sector by sector for my bitcoin private key.  I hope!

Did you try recovery software like Recuva and/or EaseUs? They may be able to recover your wallet.dat file.

If you had a password on your wallet file, you won't be able to find the private key doing a sector by sector search as they are stored encrypted.

If you can't recover the wallet.dat, then I'm afraid your coins are gone. :-\

He is confused,I doubt he know what he is doing.If you read the posts above,he thought he got the wallet file.

Be careful with that tool.Have users posting bad experiences in the past,if you miss out a step from the tutorial,you will lose the only chance you have to recover your bitcoins.I don't recommend using it.


File did not work doesn't explain much,does it ? You need to know the basics of bitcoin,start from here : https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Private_key

I must admit that I am a complete idiot.
I meant pywallet, not btcrecover, sorry. :(

btcrecover is for forgotten passwords, while I meant to suggest you to use pywallet.
pywallet (written by jackjack) is a tool to manipulate wallet files and that one can extract a wallet from an HDD image (sorry for confusing you again, I am such a dumbass!).

-> YOU NEED PYWALLET, NOT BTCRECOVER.

Here's the forum topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.0.

Install it on the machine with the image file stored, and then run the recovery.
If you need help with it, ask in the topic.

In the future   for dirt fucking cheap  here is what to do.

buy this

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N1KXE9K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?

buy a hdd a little bigger then the one in the pc.

make sure your core wallet is empty with no coins in it.


clone the hdd in the pc to the second hdd.

take the copy put it in the pc and  boot

you will have the exact same core wallet.

put in .001 btc to the wallet.

pull the clone  put the original hdd back  boot

after synching you will see the same wallet and the same 0.001 btc in it.

put the clone in a safe spot.

every once in a while pull the hdd out of the pc  put the clone in to synch.

cheap safe way to guard your coins.

I have 3 clones of my hdd for my core wallet.  one in a safe deposit box.

The real pywallet can help, but there's a fake pywallet which you mustn't use. SopaXT posted a link to the real pywallet thread, which leads to the legit github of a user called jackjack-jj. This is his legit pywallet github.

https://github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet

The fake pywallet is on the github of a user called jj-jackjack, and it will steal your coins. See how similar the user names are? This is a warning posted about it.

When you image the drive make sure you image the whole drive, not just the "in use" part, as there are usually two ways to image drives. One does a full image including "empty" space, that's the one you want. Macrium Reflect Free will do it.

if you didn't recover your wallet yet.....stop playing with your original drive...!!!

SSD have TRIM and Garbage  Collection and other ''automated erasing'' functions....


You need to make a bit per bit image/copy of it and work on that....never ever play with you original drive


which OS and file system was on your SSD ?

 

wanted to give an update as to what I did so that if anyone in future that has this kind of problem can take this route.  I made an image of the hard drive and tried many different things which were suggested on this forum none of them worked for me.  I sent my hard drive the original into a company called secure data recovery they are located in Ohio I believe.  They ran a free diagnostics test on my hard drive and gave me a quote of a little under $2000.  I pre authorized the charge via a credit card.  They gave me a 5-11 business day window to complete the raw recovery.  On completion they charged my card and sent me my request file "wallet.dat" via a dropbox.  This worked great and must say they did an awesome job highly recommend this company! 

So have you got all your BTC back?.

Just get some software that recovers files and then recover the wallet it should work

Great. 

Now make sure that you move the coins from whatever address(es) in that wallet.dat file into a newly created wallet (to ensure that you don't use an older pre-generated address in the old one) so that if there is a copy of that wallet.dat anywhere else, your coins are safe.

Something like Electrum or Bitcoin Core's HD wallet functionality are useful.

you are a lucky man. Good job not giving up.