private keys in hexadecimal help

[morbius55]

Is it true that private keys in a wallet are always preceded by the sequence 0420, or isn't that always the case. I don't want to follow the advice of others that say that the keys always follow that sequence if it doesn't. I would keep searching the wallet if in most cases the keys would follow this sequence. It is a lot of time consuming work, but for possibly btc it is worth it, I just don't want to be on a wild goose chase. cheers.

[achow101]

The private key is just a 256-bit number. How wallets store them is up to the wallet implementation. You should not be expecting all wallets to use the same implementation for storing private keys.

[DannyHamilton]

Is it likely that the wallet had a password on it?  If so, you're going to need the password and the master key.  Otherwise the private keys will be useless to you.

[achow101]

The wallet is bitcoin core from around 2013 and I am only scanning the wallet.dat on a usb stick. Could you offer any pointers for finding what I need?. If I search for text with the editor I do get the words pkey appearing, would the hex strings around their occurrence be of use to me?. Thanks again.

What is preventing you from just loading it in Bitcoin Core or using a tool like pywallet? Unless your wallet is horribly corrupt, you shouldn't need to dig around in the wallet file manually.

[morbius55]

The wallet is corrupted and I don't know how to get pywallet up and running unfortunately. I know it's a long shot and not being very computer savvy doesn't help, but I am not ready to give up yet when this amount is at stake. Cheers.

[jackg]

The wallet is corrupted and I don't know how to get pywallet up and running unfortunately. I know it's a long shot and not being very computer savvy doesn't help, but I am not ready to give up yet when this amount is at stake. Cheers.

Try using the -salvagewallet command (look at the help screen for the implementation of this on the newest version of core). You may also have to use -updatewallet.

If not, if you can tell me the operating system you're using, I'll try to see if I can build a script that will install pywallet for you (with the dependencies) and then you just have to look at how to run commands from that.

You could also look at contacting the user jackjack who is the developer of pywallet, he might be able to try to get your private keys for you.

[morbius55]

The wallet is corrupted and I don't know how to get pywallet up and running unfortunately. I know it's a long shot and not being very computer savvy doesn't help, but I am not ready to give up yet when this amount is at stake. Cheers.

Try using the -salvagewallet command (look at the help screen for the implementation of this on the newest version of core). You may also have to use -updatewallet.

If not, if you can tell me the operating system you're using, I'll try to see if I can build a script that will install pywallet for you (with the dependencies) and then you just have to look at how to run commands from that.

You could also look at contacting the user jackjack who is the developer of pywallet, he might be able to try to get your private keys for you.

Hi, that would be great if you could do that i'm running Windows 10. I asked jackjack if he was going to release an updated version with a gui like he said that he was going to but didn't hear anything from him. I guess he is very busy  which is fair enough, and I think he figures that nobody needs pywallet anymore, but I certainly do and probably others too.

[jackg]

The wallet is corrupted and I don't know how to get pywallet up and running unfortunately. I know it's a long shot and not being very computer savvy doesn't help, but I am not ready to give up yet when this amount is at stake. Cheers.

Try using the -salvagewallet command (look at the help screen for the implementation of this on the newest version of core). You may also have to use -updatewallet.

If not, if you can tell me the operating system you're using, I'll try to see if I can build a script that will install pywallet for you (with the dependencies) and then you just have to look at how to run commands from that.

You could also look at contacting the user jackjack who is the developer of pywallet, he might be able to try to get your private keys for you.

Hi, that would be great if you could do that i'm running Windows 10. I asked jackjack if he was going to release an updated version with a gui like he said that he was going to but didn't hear anything from him. I guess he is very busy  which is fair enough, and I think he figures that nobody needs pywallet anymore, but I certainly do and probably others too.

I'll try to build you a .bat that will install everything for it you need. Linux is slightly more difficult CLI-wise than Linux but I'll take a look (Windows will already have a lot of the requirements software-wise as well).

[jackg]

Code:

C:\python27\python -m pip install -U pip setuptools
C:\python27\python -m pip install twisted
C:\python27\Scripts easy_install.exe Zope.Interface-3.6.4-py2.7-win-amd64.egg

Can you run these commands individually and see if there is any issues.
To test python is in the right folder, try the command "cd C:\pthon27\python" and it should open a command line of python.


If you don't know how to run this, press "start+r" and type "cmd.exe" → Then paste the commands in there - I couldn't test the code on my own computer (due to not having an updated version of C++) and I also couldn't find the location of another module that is required - I'll try to look at it but I want to know if the first two commands at least do work correctly.

[HCP]

How old is the wallet.dat? Was it from a recent version of Bitcoin Core or an older version? If it is from a new version... you may find that pywallet doesn't handle it very well... it would appear that the devs added a number of new data fields into wallet.dat and pywallet will likely complain loudly about unknown records.

[morbius55]

How old is the wallet.dat? Was it from a recent version of Bitcoin Core or an older version? If it is from a new version... you may find that pywallet doesn't handle it very well... it would appear that the devs added a number of new data fields into wallet.dat and pywallet will likely complain loudly about unknown records.

It's from about 2013.

[achow101]

Have you tried using Bitcoin Core's -salvagewallet option yet? Although -salvagewallet has a few issues, it should help if your wallet is corrupted. But before you do that, always make sure that you have a backup of your wallet somewhere.

[morbius55]

Have you tried using Bitcoin Core's -salvagewallet option yet? Although -salvagewallet has a few issues, it should help if your wallet is corrupted. But before you do that, always make sure that you have a backup of your wallet somewhere.

Already tried that, it said wallet.dat corrupt salvage failed. How can I tell if the wallet was locked the last time it was used?.

[achow101]

How can I tell if the wallet was locked the last time it was used?.

If your wallet has a password on it, then it is always locked. There is never a time where the wallet is unlocked on disk.

[morbius55]

How can I tell if the wallet was locked the last time it was used?.

If your wallet has a password on it, then it is always locked. There is never a time where the wallet is unlocked on disk.

Got you, that's why when you unlock it is for a finite time.

[suppersz]

You will probably have to get pywallet and dump the wallet, and see how much information you can extract. It should  have all the addresses listed in there, with the privkey below (I think). Check all the addresses in there and see if one of them is the one you are looking for. And if the privkey is encrypted, you will have to guess what is was.