Hello to all old timers and newcomers. First and foremost I want to thank the ones that helped me so much years back. I wouldn't still be on this path if it wasn't for all your insights and support.

Here are the links to previous runs I've had trying to determine what I got and how to get it back.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5325117.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5326228.0

So, here are the facts - In late 2011 to January 2012 I was running an offline version of Electrum using a thumbdrive with the blockchain on it. (Yeah, back then the blockchain was that small!)

When I ran the wallet.dat data through it, Electrum generated a 12 word seed that uses the BIP 39 list. I also derived an xpub and verified funds. The xpub is on a disk as a string of text...somewhere.

In 2012 I confirmed the mnemonic phrase worked and could access them at least through Electrum as it would at the very least give me access to the keys.

Fast forward to now. I have been trying to get BTCrecover to work for me but it has been quite challenging over the years. I had to give up after the machine I was using just didnt have the "Guramba" to parse the data and kept crashing. So now I have a beast of a PC to run BTCrecover in Linux.

I am still tinkering with the seedtoken file to make it work and to pare down the possibilities. I am also trying to figure out the derivation path as this was Electrum and I got no clue which version my January 2012 build was.

I've gotten many problems with Ubuntu lately. I just doesn't want to update correctly. So I've resorted to using POP OS and it delivers where Ubuntu 22.04 fails. I am however still having trouble getting GPU acceleration and pyopencl to work correctly. Here is a pic of what I am currently running.

https://imgur.com/3hwjYs7

I know I have something, just gotta find the right way to get at it.

Aloha to all on the forum! I am back with a whole new avenue of approach from where I left off

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5325117.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5326228.0

Installing BTCrecover on Ubuntu is simpler than what I made it out to be. It's tedious but I got the working order of command line arguments for a simple & streamlined method


Download the Ubuntu 20.04 ISO from the appropriate site

https://releases.ubuntu.com/20.04/


Then you will need to mount the ISO as bootable media on a usb stick using Rufus

You can download the utility from https://rufus.ie/en_US/

Here is a quick instructional video how to use Rufus


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQfCvoAEY7w


When installing Ubuntu on your chosen hardware, select the minimal install option.

When your Ubuntu OS is up and running, download the latest ZIP file of 3rditeration BTCrecover

https://github.com/3rdIteration/btcrecover/archive/refs/heads/master.zip


Extract the ZIP to the desktop

When completed, right click the new BTCrecover folder to open a terminal

You will need to run terminal with su system permissions

Then, one by one, use these terminal commands in order

Code:

sudo apt-get update

Code:

sudo apt install python3-pip

Code:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Code:

pip3 install -r requirements-full.txt

(Might be redundant, might not but this is what I had to do)

Code:

sudo apt install python3-tk

(you will need the python3 tkinter for the GUI to work in Linux)

Code:

sudo apt-get upgrade

At your discretion, check https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/GPU_Acceleration/ to see if your GPU is compatible to run with pyopencl.

Follow the Linux instructions 1/3 down the page. This is optional but will greatly speed up results if implemented



If you followed all the steps above to completion, your Ubuntu OS should be primed for running this final test command (With or without pyopencl. It will just skip certain tests without it.)

Code:

python3 run-all-tests.py -vv

If all goes well you should blast though the 500 or so tests in less than 2 minutes. You should now be ready to run BTCrecover in Linux


Big kudos goes out to 3rditeration/Cryptoguide for all the hard work he's put into helping us all in the crypto community.

Got some Bitcoin in 2012 blah blah blah, read all about it here

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5325117.msg56605523#msg56605523

Now that I got BTCrecover running, the last thing I need is to make the working argument and the seedlist token file

tried making one work based off this and it was a no go.

^1^Word1
^2^Word2
^3^Word3 ^4^Word3 ^5^Word3
^7^Word7 ^8^Word7
^7^Word8 ^8^Word8
^9^Word9 ^10^Word9
^9^Word10 ^10^Word10
^11^Word11
^12^Word12

The current argument I have going is

Code:

python seedrecover.py --no-dupchecks --mnemonic-length 12 --language EN --dsw --wallet-type BIP39  --addr-limit 1 --bip32-path --seedlist .\seedtoken.txt

Tried running it without the token with additional argument and it gave me a 36 hour eta just counting possibilities and at 6 hours it was at 7 billion.

The seedlist token is the only way to be sure I'm doing it right if I do let it run for days or weeks. Let me know if you have any insight how to configure the seedlist token file correctly

Back in late 2011 I got some bitcoin from New Liberty Standard. After researching the best way to put my coins in cold storage I resorted to using Electrum in Jan 2012 to verify my coins using an offline watching wallet. I then made a BIP 39 12 word mnemonic seed phrase. I also added more coins to the address but never verified and basically left it alone for years.

I created a txt file with the seed phrase but some of it got corrupted. Fortunately I stumbled across 3rditeration BTCrecover, who confirmed I am well within the recovery parameters as I am only short 3 words. I got a good guess as to what they might be but I'd rather deal in certainties.

I installed all the necessary software on a decent setup, got it up and running on a 44 core, 40 gb ram system and after testing, I have 24 workers available. My problem is I need to narrow down the search parameters otherwise I may be left with hundreds of billions of possibilities. I'm probably doing things wrong.

I was tinkering around with the seedlist/token file approach using symbols like "^ +" but it didn't like what I gave it to chew on. I'm also not sure of the derivation path let alone some of the commands I should pursue in my working argument for cmd line

Here is the situation with my 12 word bip39 seed phrase

The first 2 words are known and are a lock

I only know one of the the next 4 words and not sure which of the 3rd or 4th position the known word fits

the 7th and 8th are known but not sure of their exact position

same for the 9th and 10th

The last 2 words are known and are a lock


I know I'm close to having a breakthrough. If anyone out there is reading this and sees any possible methods of resolution, I'm here until this gets done.