It was pretty clean not many files, it was used mainly for work accounts/ quotation after formatting but i don't think the existance of any wallet.dat remains - i found and recovered a few long lost photos from the xp data and thats about it. Time to move on, the btc will just have to remain where its been since 09.


Really like to say thanks to everyone who took time to give me some advice and tips to help. cheers

Late replying back to this thread, been away with temp illness.

Yeah think you're right tbh. Chances look dead. The PC was used about this long after reformatting before the motherboard/cpu or whatever failed and i never bothered with it again.

Thanks a lot for this guide, very good. I will have a crack at it this week. I will also go back to Linux and try as suggested - making a clone using DD and try to work it that way. It is all beyond me this stuff, bit too technical but willing to try and at least put any doubts to rest by exhausting every avenue of search. All i know is at the time i was running SETI (search for extra terrestrial intelligence) - crunching data & i ran bitcoin to mine in the background alternatively, it was in 2009 as i left the country later that year. If it's gone it's gone, game over. Appreciate all the replies 
Cheers

i found it through this old thread, 10 posts down.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2398504.0

If you launch it from inside of WSL, you will have your drives under /mnt folder, like "/mnt/c/...."(it will be probably "--recov_device /mnt/z")
If you boot your machine into pure linux, it will appear somewhere under /dev/ folder.


[/quote]

I've tried to run pywallet but really struggling.

I downloaded the file into downloads it auto ran the installation - created files in c: program files 86x\  GnuWin32 folder it also created a pywallet bat file which it dumped into downloads where the auto zip file was. Ran the install bat.

Opened win + R CMD

Typed  cd C:\Users\'name'\downloads\ pywallet

it comes back to say
The system cannot find the path specified.

This is melting my mind 

I've got Winhex downloaded and i did a search the other day for 0420 and  it came back with results but i read this is common to find. I didnt know about the other hex to search like the ones you've added , so i will try them.

I used ddrescue to create a disk image of the hdd on Linux.  i think i will look at your suggestion. Simply because i'm not sure if the Windows software is including everything. I ran Testdisk, Dmde, recuva and r-studio and they all find different deleted files, quite impressive really but i need to search for the wallet - need to get those python scripts working..I'm literally looking through folders one by one.

I did find bitminter client and username details to which i contacted their email support - its no longer running. Was good enough to reply to inform me it was just dust, i dont even remember running it so sounds right.😁


 cheers for everyones input.

Ok thanks guys, i will look into WSL that sounds a lot better to figure out. Yes i was wondering which cloning software  will pick up all deleted data and not worry about missing sections. As i say, some software has picked up deleted data, it's just messy to look at so i'm not too sure. If i figure out pywallet and it comes back with nothing then maybe best put it to bed and accept it's gone.

Hi, Yes i am running Windows 10. What is WSL , is it like a dual boot thing ? No i have not restored any folder structures, i ran Testdisk, r-studio - which came back with deleted sections but i didn't recover them as was unsure what to bother with. Also ran DMDE using the search for wallet.ini, but as you say likely program file.

Not tried pywallet.....I installed python 2.7 on my c drive . How do i run it , just command line ? and say if the mounted disk is Local disk (z) how do i get it to target that cloned image ?

Cheers

Hello,

I'm aware the forum is probably awash with these type of posts, so i sincerley apologise for another. i've spent a few weeks trying to possibly recover bitcoin wallet from mining in 2009 but hit a dead end, so i've come to ask for advice.

So to explain, I mined bitcoin propbably early 2009 for roughly 2 months, before thinking it was not really worth leaving the pc on and called it a day. This was on an old pentium 4 pc desktop, nothing great. I left the country oct 09 and left my PC with my friend and said he could use it until i returned. Upon returning 2011, he had wiped windows xp and put on win7 OS.

I got the pc back, but it packed in and i never used it again.

I never had any interest in cryptocurrency until last year, and recently saw a thread on reddit explaining that even with a formatted drive, that it's possible to recover deleted bitcoin wallet.

So i got the old hdd out and bought a sata 3 caddy.

Then as i read was advisable , i cloned the HDD booting my windows laptop into a Linux ubuntu usb boot key.

I used ddrescue and saved the cloned drive image to an external.

I have searched for wallet.dat and don't see anything from a standard search or browsing to app data. I think i need to recover the deleted xp formatted part. If this is not possible and it's simply gone and it's toast, then fine, i just move on.

I managed to figure out how to run testdisk and found lot's of deleted stuff but so much came back i had no idea what to do with it all next.

Then i tried to follow the instructions from this thread to use keyhunter.py https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2857580.0 .....but this is where i am stuck, i do not know Linux, nor am i good technically with computer code like this...So i couldn't get it to work.

I mounted the cloned hdd image, but no idea how to use keyhunter.py it said to make it executable - no idea.

Then i went back to windows 10, cloned the hdd once again using EaseUS software ( windows wouldnt open the Linux created image file), mounted it which created it as Local drive (Z)

Then i ran R-studio and followed this guide https://www.disktuna.com/recover-lost-or-deleted-bitcoin-wallet-dat-using-r-studio/

The script wallet.ini filled raw data files as suggested to use in that guide came back with various wallet folders with a total of 39 dat files - probably nothing looking at it, none were marked wallet.dat. I still haven't recovered any potential formatted data though.

Edit **the search using wallet.ini that came back with 39 files - i used a program called DMDE.

So is this just toast and chasing btc ghosts or is there something else i could do ?

Cheers