Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

I have an old walleet.dat i think created back in the days of wallet 0.16.0

I downloaded bitcoin core 0.21.0 and waited for it to fully synchronize

I then went to the Bitcoin roaming file and put the wallet.dat in there: when i load the Client it does not see the wallet.

I go to Program Files\Bitcoin <-this is the 64 bits wallet, thre is nothing in the x86 folder

I try: bitcoin-qt.exe -rescan  <- same result, wallet not loaded
I try: bitcoin-qt.exe -wallet wallet.dat <- i get an error dialog box saying format not recognized

What am I doing wrong?

[edit] When i downloaded 0.21.0 i quickly clicked on stuff and i think i told it to remember only the last 2 GB of data so mayne now the wallet is behind the available blockchain info?

it is better to know your wallet balance before do your Full sync. I dont know if listreceivedbyaddress works without full Sync.

If you do not care about privacy, you can try the following steps:

 - Go to pywallet ---> https://github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet
 - add your wallet.dat in that directory
 - use this code (./pywallet.py --dumpwallet  --datadir=. --passphrase=PASSPHRASE)
 - if it works enter this code (./pywallet.py --dumpwallet --dumpwithbalance --datadir=. --passphrase=PASSPHRASE)

Now you will be directed to a file, search for the private key (Dont shear it) and the balance, after that you can use electrum wallet to spend that coins.

Source --> https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transferring_coins_from_Bitcoin-Qt_to_Electrum

Are you sure that the wallet.dat is generated from the Bitcoin core? Or might on a different wallet like Stratis-qt?
I tried to search on Google about the error that you get "wallet.dat format not recognized" it seems no one experienced this before except for those who use Stratis-qt.

But if you are sure that it is from bitcoin core then try this below.

What I think is manually set the data directory of your bitcoin core wallet. So start on making a new folder on C drive sample c:\BitcoinData then paste the wallet.dat inside the folder.

Now set the bitcoin-qt shortcut with this below at the end.

Source: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Data_directory

Looks like this
https://i.imgur.com/XkTbxVm.png

Then reopen the bitcoin core wallet. Let's hope it will recognize but if not your last hope is to try pywallet as suggested above.

Hi All

Thanks for your replies. It worked as follows:
1. I closed the bitcoin wallet
2. I reopened it again, it said i need to rescan and download the full blockchain again
3. It did not do that, it just did a count down in the launch dialog and then when it started the coins were there

Thanks