Thanks for all the responses. I appreciate everyone taking the time to try and help me solve this.


  I do remember using the Mnemonic recovery at the time and I'm pretty sure now that I just used Blockchain to look up the public key.

  I don't think the mini notebook I had at the time could even hold the blockchain so as HCP said that eliminates Bitcoin Core and wallet.dat right?

  Were there a lot of desktop wallets available in 2011?

  Does anyone remember a more repsected/secure one at that time?

  Was the mnemonic (and possible the SMS verification) common at the time?

  So if I ever were to stumble across the Mnemonic I wrote down and the wallet provider is gone does it still recover my private keys?
 

  The index.dat file for the date I had in mind seems to be encrypted?? When I open it in the recovery preview it just shows a bunch of    |oi 3/4 3/4 3/4 |oi 3/4-3/4-3/4-3/4  URL: YYYYYYYYY |oi 3/4-3/4-3/4 etc...

   Any hope there? The file is 256.00 KB

{88A16072-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}.dat
FontCache-S-1xxxx.dat
tokens.dat
index.dat
cache.dat
Schema.dat{xxxx-xxxx...}
index48a.dat
index48b.dat

 I wish I knew what was installed at the time but unfortunately someone did it all for me back then.

   I have an old computer that may still have Bitcoin on it and need some help sifting thru the data. The hard drive was either formatted and reloaded with Windows 7 at the time or rolled back to an earlier date. I tried EaseUS Recovery and found files from around the time the wallet would have been created. There are .dat files but none that are wallet.dat.

Is it possible that one of those could be the necessary file and the recovery software changed the name?


Are there any specific key formats,code or files I can search for in all the recovered data?

 

I also have a few IE indexes. Is there a way to search those to maybe see a public id or wallet id that was typed in?       I do remember using Blockchain.info to check a few times (2011).

 
  I did not set this up personally back then. I was asking a friend about Bitcoin since someone asked me if they could use it as payment and he set up an account for me. This would have been September to December 2011 or possibly September to December 2010. What I do remember is that he had to download the entire blockchain to his laptop before he set up my account. What I don't remember was if he did the same to my little mini laptop. It's entirely possible all of the data was set up on his laptop and he just gave me the public and private id. Does this make any sense? I do remember setting up a password and re-typing a seed with randomly generated words (can't find). Was the SMS confirmation available at this time as well? I vaguely remember doing this but could be wrong. Is this all something that could be set up with just a desktop wallet?

  Any help would be greatly appreciated and rewarded if this can be recovered. It's driving me crazy as it's simultaneously the best and worst thing to remember about.

 Thanks for all the responses. I do remember my password but I don't have a wallet id to go with it. So far Blockchain support has been unable to help me locate my id. I clearly remember using the Blockchain interface from 2011. I remember the layout with the country flags, cash into coins button, gyft button and qr code at the bottom left. It's the only one that stands out to me. I remember having to set up the 12 word recovery seed and I vaguely remember getting sms text messages to verify. I also remember the person setting it up for me having to download the Blockchain to his computer (but not mine) to transfer the coins to me.

 Would I have been able to get to that Blockchain page with a different wallet that was just on my computer? Would that wallet still have me do the 12 word recovery seed and sms verifications? Everything was set up for me no later than nov. 2011.

    Thanks everyone for helping with this. It's driving me absolutely crazy!

   

   I had an account set up for me in 2011 and from what I can remember it was on Blockchain. Theres a chance that the person that set it up for me used one of their emails instead of mine and forwarded the info to me. Since then those domains and email accounts have shut down and are no longer active.

   What happens to the Blockchain request if the account was set up with one of hose emails but they no longer exist? Would the wallet identifier not be retrievable? If I were to setup the domains again with the same emails would Blockchain's reminder then go thru?

Thanks for the responses. I have tried a software recovery tool and have recovered a lot of older files but nothing obvious. Can you tell me what to look for in those files? I'm assuming that there wasn't ever a wallet.dat file since it was stored on Blockchain's servers right? Was there a specific way the id was stored through Internet explorer or another file section that I can search the code on?


  Blockchain did offer a last resort method of me supplying my password to them and the date I thought it was created. Any thoughts on this? Are they able to force the password onto all the wallets created that day? If it opens they are just going to say "it worked, here's your xxx bitcoins". I'm hesitant to try this even though I have my password and a specific set of dates when the wallet was created. Any thoughts on this?

  I'm reaching out to this forum for help trying to retrieve my wallet identifier created in late 2011. Long story short I had a friend set up a wallet for me in late 2011 and shortly thereafter my computer picked up a virus and I formatted the hard drive forgetting that the interface and wallet id was on there. I picked up a new IPad and the computer was put away and forgotten.

  Fast forward to 2018 and for whatever reason I remember that situation and start piecing together the details. After looking at different interfaces from that time the Blockchain interface stands out to me. I'm confident that's the one I used. I try their email reminder but nothing. I then start a troubleshooting tag with them and hunt down my emails as well as my friends that were used at the time as well as any ip addresses but so far I've been getting a luke warm response at best. The responses seem very generic and I'm not really getting much help from them to this point. I understand if I lost my password but this is the wallet id. Who am I supposed to retrieve it from if not them?

  Is it possible my friend set up some different interface and not Blockchain's? Were there even interfaces like that back then? I only used it for a few times but the one I remember looks just like that setup. I remember getting an email confirmation (since deleted), I remember doing the 12 word phrase and retyping everything in(can't find) and I'm pretty sure I got verification codes on my phone when I logged in.

 Is it possible I was using something besides Blockchain? Is there anything I can do to try and track down my wallet identifier?