how to retrieve .005 bitcoin sent by fawcet?

[reg]

I origionally downloaded 0.4 client and it generated an address which i copied to my e-mail. But the program did not initalise and download blocks. the bitcoin was sent to the address i gave to fawcet but that address no longer appears in my address book. now i have got the client to run and the bitcoin is in the system according to blockcheck.  do i own that bitcoin or is it lost? I do not seem to be able to assign that recieving address to my client? anyone?  reg

[dree12]

I origionally downloaded 0.4 client and it generated an address which i copied to my e-mail. But the program did not initalise and download blocks. the bitcoin was sent to the address i gave to fawcet but that address no longer appears in my address book. now i have got the client to run and the bitcoin is in the system according to blockcheck.  do i own that bitcoin or is it lost? I do not seem to be able to assign that recieving address to my client? anyone?  reg

Can you locate your wallet.dat? It's in your AppData/Roaming/Bitcoin folder, if you are using Windows.

[reg]

dree12, thanks -yes i have the file wallet.dat and it contains numerous smaller files- i have no idea what to look for next. reg

[payb.tc]

maybe your client needs to download ALL the blocks... there are at least 155,222 of them now.

[deepceleron]

The wallet.dat is a single file - it is your wallet, and contains your Bitcoin addresses and private keys. If you have manually gone into the user data directory and removed files from there, then you may have deleted the original wallet.dat containing the address and keys matching the faucet deposit. If you have never done something like this as part of getting bitcoin to work, it is possible that the original address that you were show is still one of the addresses in your wallet, and once you have allowed Bitcoin to download 155,000+ blocks you will see the transaction in your client.

[reg]

deepceleron- I have downloaded 155240 blocks now and nothing shows up? I have not changed deleted or knowingly corrupted any files I only just found out how to find the file. i opened it and closed it again as the data was incomprehesible to me. the origional receiving address which i gave fawcet and saved in my e-mail shows in blockexplorer with another address which i presume must be the sender. but that address is no longer in my address book? reg.

[deepceleron]

You should not attempt to open the wallet.dat file. It is possible that some utility you were using to "open" it changed the contents. It looks like sometime between getting the original installation's address and now the original wallet file got deleted. Just post your current bitcoin address here and I'll send you some coins so you can see it works now.

[reg]

deepceleron- thanks i need to do this:   1Q6JPdRQHYuuYogtrBYm7G2ohoogzdfJem
regards reg

[Raoul Duke]

You should try to run your client with the rescan option.

Right click the Bitcoin shortcut icon, choose Properties and in front of Target put -rescan and save. click the icon and wait for it to rescan the blockchain.

Whatever the outcome of the procedure, if you find the lost bitcoin or not, delete the -rescan from the shortcut after doing it

[reg]

deepceleron- I have received 0.01234567 bitcoin, I would like to do the transfer back. Meanwhile you were correct, its all self inflicted  . I looked in downloads and sitting there is a file: fawcet.csv! I must have extracted it when opening the file. so now 2 points 1) how do i get the file back in the wallet and 2) what is the point of saving adresses in my e-mail? if the os is ok they are in the wallet and if i loose the os or wallet the address is useless without the file? reg.

[deepceleron]

deepceleron- I have received 0.01234567 bitcoin, I would like to do the transfer back. Meanwhile you were correct, its all self inflicted  . I looked in downloads and sitting there is a file: fawcet.csv! I must have extracted it when opening the file. so now 2 points 1) how do i get the file back in the wallet and 2) what is the point of saving adresses in my e-mail? if the os is ok they are in the wallet and if i loose the os or wallet the address is useless without the file? reg.

I don't know what you did to get a CSV file, likely the coins are gone forever from you doing some strange things to Bitcoin. There are no files involved in receiving bitcoins - you simply give your address to the sender and wait for them to send you a payment. To send a payment, you simply put the recipient's address and the amount to send in "send coins" in the Bitcoin client. The bitcoin data directory should only be accessed to make a backup copy of the wallet.dat file to a USB flash drive or such.

You can now test sending some payments - note the .0005 minimum fee, you have enough coins now to send a couple .001 - .005 payments with the fee.

If you want to donate your coins you can send them to the bitcoin faucet for others: 15VjRaDX9zpbA8LVnbrCAFzrVzN7ixHNsC

[reg]

deepceleron- thanks for your patience. At least i know the current client and receiving address works ( within a few mins actually). I will wait now untill my son can read up and go through the back up procedure with me. I will send coins to fawcet when I am able to back up the wallet.dat file. kind regards reg.