Bitcoin Forum

Please help I'm not good with running Linux Ubuntu live disk, haven't used it for a really long time, the computer is not connected to the internet. This is what I need, a package put together for pywallet that is able to accept a passphrase to unlock the key encryption, the wallet is not encrypted. It is probably a Beta version of 0.3.0 Linux. I need it to be simple like someone that has never ran a computer.


I have an old hard drive that might have a couple of Bitcoin on it. Any help would be appreciated.

Not sure about Bitcoin-qt or not, there was a guy helping me set up it up, it had an odd Linux partition type that most programs won't mount it. I ran it off of a live boot disk, and set up partitions for it to store data there. He sent me a couple of coins to get started messing with it, but I got busy working and never had a chance to do anything. Only thing I done is make the keys and send a public key to him, he sent back a transaction number and that's as far as I ever got. I tried one time to mount it again and it didn't mount and I forgot how to force mnt it, so it has just sat there. Wondering if pywallet would be a good way to get the keys from the partitions.

I did make a clone of the partitions. As far as I remember I only made the one key pair.

Can you be a bit more specific? Did you mean Bitcoin-qt version 0.2? That would be one of the oldest versions, long before I ever used Bitcoin. Can you search for a wallet.dat on the hard drive, and if you find it, start by making a backup?

Yes, more information is required in order to help you out

If you know the address you used, you could check for the transactions using blockchain.info.

pywallet can dump the private keys out of an old wallet.
Also, I wrote a script to dump the private keys out of an unencrypted wallet.dat in a quick, straightforward way: https://gist.github.com/SopaXorzTaker/e5256e9ecdce740f182093f72f05b8d2.

can you give the system message gave out when mount  failing?
If your problem is not solved, i willing to help?

Oldnewbie sent me a few PMs, but Newbies can only send 2 PMs per day. So let's try to solve this from this topic.

I'll summarize what I know so far, correct me if it's wrong:
1. You used a Linux LIVE CD, created a partition on your hard drive, and created a Bitcoin wallet.
2. Someone transfered some Bitcoins to your wallet.
3. You think you used version 0.2 Linux, which might have been one of the earliest Bitcoin-qt releases. I expect your wallet to be called wallet.dat.
4. You set a passphrase for the wallet (and I hope you still know what it is!)


Selected quotes from the PMs:
Partition 88  would be Linux plaintext, which I've never used before. It would have been a weird choice, but you could have remembered it wrong. 0x88 could be something else too.

I can't think of a wallet that has a password for the private key, but not for the wallet itself.

Question:
How big are each of the partition on your disk?

My suggestions on how to proceed:
1. Create a LIVE Linux DVD, I suggest Ubuntu (https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop).
2. Burn it, and boot it. Use a computer with enough RAM, you may have to install your old disk in a newer PC.
3. Start by confirming which partitions you have. Open a Terminal (CTRL-ALT-T), and enter for instance:
Post the results of your partitions.
4. You can try to mount the partitions from Ubuntu's GUI. Just see if it works.
5. Once mounted, search for files.

It would be easiest if that same guy would help you out again. From here, I'm just guessing what to do, so for now I'll wait if you can use my suggestions to determine the exact partitions you have.

It may be able to do this, but I have no experience using it.

I was able to search my hard drive for different prefixes, what I came up with was I had a couple of hits on hex prefix for BIP32 keys, I used the hex 04 88 AD E4 and
0488B21E , can you tell me how I can get them in a format to import into a wallet.

AFAIK, a wallet from 2010 can't contain any xpub / xprv keys, because they weren't introduced back then.

The wallet I remember using I put a 12 word passphrase in. I do know the month that I done it, the hard drive crashed right after I installed it. Both parts were beta version. I haven't remembered the name of the wallet, but I'm pretty sure that it was one of the first ones that you could put a 12 word passphrase in. A German programmer helped set it up. I don't have access to the old email address that I used back then. Any help will be rewarded if I can get my coins back.

I can't help you if you ignore anything I ask you.

download electrum and put your 12 word phrase there, you should be able to recover your wallet.

What Satoshi said a lost bitcoin is a donation to everyone.
If the hardrive crashed several times, it might become corrupted that will lead to your bitcoin to become lost forever.

I tested parrotsec to install in my Laptop and it has a very technical issue before you run the system, remember to look carefully if it still has a healthy partition and you still able to boot with that linux0.3, you can only recover the funds if you only fully boot the partition.

LoyceV sorry I'm not trying to ignore you, but the drive doesn't have a partition that is bootable. It looks to me like  a antivirus program might have gotten a hold of it and encrypted it.