I am mystified how I managed to create a new wallet with seed and password without pasting both in my password program which I "always" do. Colour me totally befuddled. I always use a random password generator to make a password of 40 characters comprising numbers, letters (lower and upper case) and punctuation marks so there is no chance of me ever remembering it (especially since I have drawn a total blank on creating said wallet/password/seed). I will just have to write the balance off as the cost of being dopey!

Many thanks to all who contributed and at least provided me with the satisfaction of knowing what the problem was.

I also was able to open the encrypted wallet showing the balance with my text editor. As expected it shows no seed words, however it does show long lists of characters under "seed" and "xprv". I don't suppose there is any trick or program that could use either or both of them to produce the seed words?

Thanks

I took a bit more care and time in entering the ismine address this time and it did return "false".

I have opened the unencrypted wallet with my text editor (which shows the seed words in the Keystore section, but I have to admit that I have no idea what might comprise a clue or glimmer of hope? Any suggestions what I should be looking for?

Thanks

Hi HCP and kolloh,

It appears that you guys have put your finger on the issue.

The address in the wallet with the balance:



does not appear to exist in the unencrypted 0 balance wallet:



following HCP's instructions appears to confirm this:



I assume that the address should be within "", I tried it without "" just in case



So in summary it appears that the funds are trapped for eternity due to a combination of Windows fecklessness and somehow contriving to create a new wallet without recording its seed or password (I am utterly mystified as I am completely anal about copying and pasting ever single password etc into my password software). Chalk one up to experience.

Once again many thanks guys for identifying the problem.

All the kind help is much appreciated. I do have the 13 word seed which was copied and pasted into a secure password holding software.

Perhaps the best way to clarify the problem is by sequence of screenshots.

The following is the wallet which shows the balance in it (that I can no longer access after a problem seemingly created when I had a Windows crash with the Electrum program open trying to send some bitcoins)



When I click on Wallet/Seed and enter the password:



and click OK I get:



When I click on Wallet/Password and enter the password (leaving New Password and Confirm password blank to remove password security for the wallet for the time being):



 and click OK I get:



So no way that I can find to use seed to restore this wallet.

When I create a new folder and place the Electrum.exe in it and run it I get:









after entering seed:



Click OK leaving blank to temporarily not encrypt:



which shows a wallet with the two historical transactions reflected but showing 0 balance

When I then click File-New/Restore:











and click OK after entering seed



leaving blank and clicking OK



I end up with wallet with no encryption showing historical transaction but 0 balance.

I hope this helps clarify the problem (and that I haven't mixed up any screenshots) as to not being able to restore the wallet with a balance of 0.01878453 BTC.

Once again thanks to all who have helped so far and in advance to any who might chip in.

Sorry I am clearly not getting the hang of inserting screenshots but this was the first one:

I thought that I would try Hi-Tec99's suggestion first as it seemed somewhat simpler. I downloaded Electrum 2.8.2. portable and copied it into a new folder. I ran it and repeated the screenshot steps you provided and ended up with the following:



This seems to be the state of the wallet before these troubles as it shows a previous transaction. After the seed step it allows me to access the wallet.

If I go back and follow the steps again but this time use the Choose button to select the wallet kept in a different folder that I know has the funds in it, when I click Next, Electrum skips the next two steps, i.e. Create "default_wallet" and Keystore, and opens up the following:



which shows the funds in the wallet. However the process provides no opportunity to restore it using the seed. When I click on Wallet and Password, it brings up the change password popup but when I put what I think was the password it returns Error Incorrect Password.

I am running Electrum 2.8.2 full install on a Win 7 32 bit desktop. I created an encrypted wallet and made a couple of transactions. Then I had a Windows crash. When I next tried to send some bitcoins I had in my wallet, Electrum would not accept the password that I had used when I first set up the wallet.

I still have my seed stored safely but I cannot find any way to restore the wallet using it. When I look at the FAQ's I find

"Your wallet can be entirely recovered from its seed. For this, select the “restore wallet” option in the startup."

I don't find a startup with Electrum 2.8.2, when I click on File, it offers, amongst others, New/Restore. When I click on that it opens a pop-up "New Wallet" without any button for a Restore action.  When I put the wallet name in the New Wallet pop-up it brings up an error popup with a red cross saying Fie Exists.

Electrum can "open" the wallet as it shows the value of bitcoins in it. When I try to send the bitcoins it asks for a password, when I enter the password it then reports Error: Incorrect Password. Same result if I click on Wallet, the Password.

I can find no way to restore the wallet using my seed.

I am obviously missing something and be extremely grateful for any help or guidance in solving this so that I can access my funds.