Well, after about 2 hours of hunting. I have found nothing—about what I expected. No wallet, bitcoin, or any files of the sort. If anyone has any tips on searching—let me know.

I’m afraid that I may have deleted the files/program to make room for something else. I’m going to look into recovery of lost files, but it does seem unlikely now. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

No doubt!  I appreciate the heads up.  I definitely do not trust anyone, so I would not have done that, but always nice to have your own thoughts reinforced.

What is the cliche?  I was born at night, but not last night!

Coinster,

Thank you for the reply.

No need to worry about getting my hopes up!  I am fully expecting to find nothing--If I find something there, I will celebrate later!  I will admit that my interest is definitely piqued, and I have thought about this quite a bit the last couple of days.

I am going to begin the process tomorrow.  First step--plug the hdd in (to a computer not hooked up to the web!), and see if it works.  Hopefully it does, but I am expecting the worst.  If it does NOT work, I am not sure what my next step will be, but I will have to figure it out!  If it DOES work, I think I have a pretty good handle on how to track down the 'wallet.dat' file.  If I get that far, I know that I need to make copies, and back up.  From there--I have no clue what my next step is to find out if anything is on it.  Any help with that would be greatly appreciated.

I know that I ran the program in 2009, as I bought a new computer in January of 2010.  I don't remember how I heard of Bitcoin, but I am sure I ran across it on the internet somewhere.  And I was just good enough with computers to be able to track down and understand how to get the program up and running.  After that, I was probably lost.  I know that I never checked for a wallet file, and I don't know if the program would have told me that I had solved any of the problems or not--I definitely don't remember anything along those lines.

It will be interesting, and hopefully rewarding!  Again though, not expecting much.  Just know that after reading a couple responses to my post, and researching on the internet about it, I have to attempt it.

I will keep you up to date with anything I come across!

Thanks!

Like you said--based on my vague description, and vague memory--I do not know if I set to "cpu mine" or not.  I suppose I need to just plug in the HDD and see if it is in working order (hopefully it is).  A few hours of my time is worth it.  Even if I don't find any bitcoin in the wallet, I'm sure there are some documents and things on there that would be worth a blast from the past.  What's the worst that could happen?  I don't find a treasure, that I already don't have?

I will probably start the process on Wednesday this week.  With the holidays, have a lot of family stuff going on.  I will keep you up to date.

Any suggestions?

If I find the wallet.dat file, how will I know if there is anything in it of value? Or will I need to import it to a new wallet to find out?  I know that I will need to save the wallet.dat file multiple times before I do anything with it.

Thanks!

Sounds like a plan.  I am not located too far from Colorado to the Southeast of you. 

Like I said.  I do not remember how long I left the program running, or if I did everything that I needed to do to mine.  Is there anything that would have happened at the time for me to know if I mined any?  Or would I have had to go search for it in the wallet.dat file?

Anyway, off track.  In 2009, I didn't think much of it, and didn't think it would be worth anything--especially the price it is today, so I didn't pay attention.  I just know i went through the process of reading, learning, and trying to mine--whether or not I did it right, who knows.

I guess I need to 1. plug it in, 2. hopefully the HDD is in working order, 3.  search for the wallet.dat file, 4. carefully back up, 5. begin to try to import into a new wallet.

If I get to the wallet.dat file -- will I know if there is anything in it? Or will I need to import to a new wallet to find out?


Thanks!

Sorry to anyone that reads this, and feels like they wasted their time.

To preface:  I am not super tech savvy, but I am not tech illiterate.  Let me also say this--I was in college at the time of all of this, and let's just say, some of my memory is hazy.

In 2009, I learned about Bitcoin.  I remember taking the time to look up how to mine Bitcoin, and found it interesting.  I took the time to download, and install, and begin to run the mining software.  At the time, I had very little clue what was going on.  I remember going through the steps to set everything up. I even vaguely remember watching it work (numbers and stuff).  I had no idea what any of it meant, but know that I ran the software for some time---how much, I'm not sure, could be 1 hour, could be a few days or a month. 

I have always remembered doing this, and it has even come up in conversation with some buddies of mine from the time period. 

Now, within a year of downloading, installing, and running the software, I bought a new computer.  Something happened with the one I had the software on, and the warranty was out, so I just upgraded computers.  I still have the HDD though.

Now, I guess my question has a couple of parts:

1.  Is it possible that I set everything up, ran the software, and somehow mined any bitcoin? (If no, then ignore the rest, and sorry for wasting your time)
2.  Is it possible that I have it still on that HDD from that computer in a wallet?
3.  Is there a way to retrieve it?

I know this all seems a little nuts--just know that I have kept this in mind since 2009, which is why I still have the computer and the HDD--I have destroyed computers and HDDs since, but have held onto this one.  Perhaps I'm crazy, but before I went and wasted a bunch of time, I wanted to get some outsiders thoughts that may know more than me.

Sorry for the long post, and don't know if any of it makes sense. 

Thanks

Sorry to anyone that reads this, and feels like they wasted their time.

To preface:  I am not super tech savvy, but I am not tech illiterate.  Let me also say this--I was in college at the time of all of this, and let's just say, some of my memory is hazy.

In 2009, I learned about Bitcoin.  I remember taking the time to look up how to mine Bitcoin, and found it interesting.  I took the time to download, and install, and begin to run the mining software.  At the time, I had very little clue what was going on.  I remember going through the steps to set everything up. I even vaguely remember watching it work (numbers and stuff).  I had no idea what any of it meant, but know that I ran the software for some time---how much, I'm not sure, could be 1 hour, could be a few days or a month. 

I have always remembered doing this, and it has even come up in conversation with some buddies of mine from the time period. 

Now, within a year of downloading, installing, and running the software, I bought a new computer.  Something happened with the one I had the software on, and the warranty was out, so I just upgraded computers.  I still have the HDD though.

Now, I guess my question has a couple of parts:

1.  Is it possible that I set everything up, ran the software, and somehow mined any bitcoin? (If no, then ignore the rest, and sorry for wasting your time)
2.  Is it possible that I have it still on that HDD from that computer in a wallet?
3.  Is there a way to retrieve it?

I know this all seems a little nuts--just know that I have kept this in mind since 2009, which is why I still have the computer and the HDD--I have destroyed computers and HDDs since, but have held onto this one.  Perhaps I'm crazy, but before I went and wasted a bunch of time, I wanted to get some outsiders thoughts that may know more than me.

Sorry for the long post, and don't know if any of it makes sense. 

Thanks