Old corrupt wallet.dat from when I mined in 2009-2010

[unamed_1]

Wondering if you guys could help.  I have an old corrupt wallet.dat.  The contents doesn't look like the standard encryption so I am not sure how to recover it.  The wallet has potentially quite a good number of bitcoins  (potentially over $10M worth) and I have tried just about everything I can think of.

Here is a snippit of what some of the content looks like:

Code:

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No idea what to make of it.

I've used CrypTool to play around with it to see if it was some type of encryption I was unfamiliar with.  There is a 3D analysis of the whole file and it certainly doesn't seem entirely random.  It was an older hard drive though and maybe it become corrupt.

Any help would be appreciated immensely

[SopaXT]

If your wallet is from 2009-2010, then it can't be encrypted, because the option to encrypt the wallet was added to Bitcoin much later.
You can try using https://github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet (pywallet) or my utility (linked below) to try dumping the private keys out of it (which can be imported into another wallet).

You can also try a tool I wrote: https://gist.github.com/SopaXorzTaker/e5256e9ecdce740f182093f72f05b8d2 (based on pywallet), which is easier to use.

[LoyceV]

I have an old corrupt wallet.dat.

I read this so often lately. Files don't get corrupted out of the blue, none of my files from 8 years ago are corrupted now. I've never had old wallets to test it by myself, but what happens if you try to open the old wallet.dat in an old version of bitcoin-qt (from 2009-2010)?

[unamed_1]

I have an old corrupt wallet.dat.

I read this so often lately. Files don't get corrupted out of the blue, none of my files from 8 years ago are corrupted now. I've never had old wallets to test it by myself, but what happens if you try to open the old wallet.dat in an old version of bitcoin-qt (from 2009-2010)?

I can't find a binary of an old version like that anywhere

[SopaXT]

On other threads here, it's suggested to run Bitcoin Core with the -upgradewallet option.

Seems like that it needs help to understand the old wallet formats now.

Also, running an old version won't help - it isn't going to synchronize with the network.

[bob123]

I can't find a binary of an old version like that anywhere

You can find all of those files at bitcoin.org/en/release/YOUR_VERSION.
For example, for version 0.9.2: https://bitcoin.org/en/release/v0.9.2

Also, running an old version won't help - it isn't going to synchronize with the network.

Synchronizing the network is not necessary when 'just' extracting the private keys. You don't need to synchronize when just recovering coins.
Running an older version might work due to an older wallet format and should definetly be tried.

[LoyceV]

I can't find a binary of an old version like that anywhere

You can find all of those files at bitcoin.org/en/release/YOUR_VERSION.
For example, for version 0.9.2: https://bitcoin.org/en/release/v0.9.2

From that link:

Bitcoin Core version 0.9.2 is now available from:

https://bitcoin.org/bin/0.9.2/

But if you go to https://bitcoin.org/bin/0.9.2/, you'll get a 404 Not Found. I too thought this would be possible. I don't know why they've removed old versions.

[aplistir]

Wallet.dat file is a data file, that is not in readable format.

So your file could be uncorrupted.

If everything else fails, you can try to use a hex editor and manually search your private keys from your wallet.dat file.
(Some examples of hex editors: bless in linux and frhed in windows)

Search for: "6B 65 79"  =key, and some lines later the "04 20" and the next 32 bytes could be a private key in hex.

PS. Posting a part of your unencrypted wallet.dat file to the forum might not be a smart move. There could be some keys in that pasted snipped  

[K0ld4]

Hi,

can you please post (or PM) first 10 bytes of your file (in hex)?
It's the best to start with the header (it doesn't disclose any sensitive data - chunk is too small).

[KicKfrBcn]

Hey

Go through this thread.. And see if this can help to resolve your issue..!!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1crbne/corrupted_walletdat_with_18_btc_possible_to/