Did I just loose access to my Bitcoins?

[ATPDMJ]

Ok, some more questions:
- Does you device have an SD card slot?
- Is it already rooted?

- It does not have a SD card slot, but it does have a SD card.
- No, it's not rooted

[casascius]

Thanks to everybody for your responses. If anybody has any other possible solutions in hand, please feel free to share them with me.

I would auction your tablet off to the highest bidder, expecting a premium well above the cost of replacing it with a brand new one.  This, of course would come with the right to keep any of your coins they recover, but also potentially you'd have them sign a non-disclosure agreement with respect to all your other data that might be on the tablet.  You would have to publish whether or not the coins were protected by a password, and be willing to give that password to the winning bidder.

Someone with the right skills may be able to scan all of the unallocated memory for the private keys.  That's why it might be worth paying a premium for.  Private keys are small (32 bytes), and if they're not password protected, one with the right skills could easily scan the entire memory of the tablet indiscriminately and see if anything in its memory happens to work as a bitcoin private key.

[ATPDMJ]

Sorry, but if you had no backup, the bitcoins are forever lost.
Next time, be sure the wallet is actually secure before depositing any coins into it.

There definitaly won't be a next time for me. There still is to many uncertainties connected with investing in bitcoins IMO for me to be willing to invest again. It takes a little more computer technological skills, than an average Joe like me has, to fully understand how to secure ones bitcoins. The whole point for me in investing in bitcoins was, that it was a easy, cheap and untraceable way to transfer values.

The paradoks is, that the anonymous aspect of the currency also makes it impossible to claim ownership of bitcoins, when technical problems makes the bitcoins unaccessable.
Of course one could argue, that it is stupid not to secure, that I actually had a backup (and it definately was), but I didn't really expect this to happen because I didn't do a full reasearch on how the wallet works.

I will try to find a tablet-geek in hopes that he can find and restore the file, but it does not sound like there is a lot of hope for my bitcoins.

So, I learned that bitcoins are not for me. It's just a shame, that this lesson cost me around 3.500 $. :-/

Thanks to everybody for your responses. If anybody has any other possible solutions in hand, please feel free to share them with me.

No I am sorry but this is your fault you should always write down your info or make sure wallet is on a good site like blockchain.info if you would have done research more you wouldn't be in this situation.

1. Bitcoin Wallet did not give me a private key to write down. I searched the app, and could not find any info about it.
2. The reason why I didn't use blockchain, was that this wallet-supplier had som security problems at the time i bought my bitcoins. Some people actually had their bitcoins stolen at that time. So my reasearch did make me NOT choose blockchain
3. You don't have to be Captain Obvious to conclude, that it is my own fault. But how does this obvious fact help me with my problem?

[Andreas Schildbach]

Ok, some more questions:
- Does you device have an SD card slot?
- Is it already rooted?

- It does not have a SD card slot, but it does have a SD card.
- No, it's not rooted

Ok, here is what I would try:

1. Root the tablet. (I currently don't know how, but most devices can be rooted either by flipping a switch in the bootloader or by using some root exploit.)

2. Install "adb" from the Android developer tools (or package "android-tools-adb" if you use Ubuntu).

3. Run "adb shell df" / "adb shell mount" and look for the data partition. Most likely its called "/data".

4. Run a command on the command line that will "dd" the data partition to stdout and capture that on your desktop machine to a file. It will need to run as root, hence step 1. I still need to build the command line, did not do that myself before.

5. Grep the disk image for the magic string "KEEP YOUR PRIVATE KEYS SAFE!". Make sure grep prints several lines after the matches (I think that's command line option -A).

6. You'll for sure get some matches which are your current backups (worthless), but I hope you'll also get at least one match from the deleted files. Those are your private keys. If you don't get any matches, something went wrong. At least your current key backups should show up.

If you don't feel confident to do all that stuff I suggest searching for an Android expert (local Android meetups are great for that). You should be able to trust him - he can run away with your coins.

I also offer you mail the tablet to me and I see if I manage to rescue your keys.

[MAbtc]

That OP was awful to read. Hopefully from reading the thread there is an ounce of hope.... but remember now, always back up your wallet dat!

[3550Happiness]

Ok, some more questions:
- Does you device have an SD card slot?
- Is it already rooted?

- It does not have a SD card slot, but it does have a SD card.
- No, it's not rooted

Ok, here is what I would try:

1. Root the tablet. (I currently don't know how, but most devices can be rooted either by flipping a switch in the bootloader or by using some root exploit.)

2. Install "adb" from the Android developer tools (or package "android-tools-adb" if you use Ubuntu).

3. Run "adb shell df" / "adb shell mount" and look for the data partition. Most likely its called "/data".

4. Run a command on the command line that will "dd" the data partition to stdout and capture that on your desktop machine to a file. It will need to run as root, hence step 1. I still need to build the command line, did not do that myself before.

5. Grep the disk image for the magic string "KEEP YOUR PRIVATE KEYS SAFE!". Make sure grep prints several lines after the matches (I think that's command line option -A).

6. You'll for sure get some matches which are your current backups (worthless), but I hope you'll also get at least one match from the deleted files. Those are your private keys. If you don't get any matches, something went wrong. At least your current key backups should show up.

If you don't feel confident to do all that stuff I suggest searching for an Android expert (local Android meetups are great for that). You should be able to trust him - he can run away with your coins.

I also offer you mail the tablet to me and I see if I manage to rescue your keys.

Andreas, thank you very much for your patient assistance with this. I am in presence of ATPDMJ´s tablet now, and me and my brother in law, have spend quite some hours on trubbleshooting on this.

For now, we have managed to do a dump of the build in ROM, but unfortunatly with a lot of damaged data on it. We have managed to pull out the new wallet file, (so the process it self is working. I can go more in to details around this later, if relevant)

I got two questions, you might be able to answer.

ATPDMJ used to have his Ipad, and do have a old backup of this. I would expect that they Key remains unchanged. So couldent I just get the key from there?

In case we do manage to get the Key out, how would i actualy import it again? I have found quite a few tutorials, but are confused on a whole new level now 

All input is appreciated.

[mateo]

Until problems like this can be unwound I see little future for btc in a wider monetary context. It's only ever going to be a novelty store of value.

Right, because the reason other forms of currency (such as USD) have a future in a wider monetary context is that if they burn up or get flushed down the toilet, or are otherwise permanently lost, the situation can be "unwound".

You can keep fiat in the bank, insured by the government, in case the bank goes bust. Who keeps their savings in paper money?

[DannyHamilton]

You can keep fiat in the bank, insured by the government, in case the bank goes bust. Who keeps their savings in paper money?

So, paper money doesn't exist?

[mateo]

You can keep fiat in the bank, insured by the government, in case the bank goes bust. Who keeps their savings in paper money?

So, paper money doesn't exist?

Wut? Interesting leap of logic there. People use paper money for daily transactions, but keeps their money in the bank.

Bitcoin bubbles and crashes all the time, plus you can lose your wallet like the OP here, plus some hacker can always steal it, which is why I use it for daily transactions, but never keep more BTC than I need for trading. Those reasons that I mentioned are why Bitcoin is of so much more limited use as a currency than fiat.

[Andreas Schildbach]

For now, we have managed to do a dump of the build in ROM, but unfortunatly with a lot of damaged data on it. We have managed to pull out the new wallet file, (so the process it self is working. I can go more in to details around this later, if relevant)

Yes, details would be appreciated.

ATPDMJ used to have his Ipad, and do have a old backup of this. I would expect that they Key remains unchanged. So couldent I just get the key from there?

Bitcoin Wallet doesn't run on the iPad, so its not likely it will contain any of the relevant keys.

In case we do manage to get the Key out, how would i actualy import it again? I have found quite a few tutorials, but are confused on a whole new level now  

If you search for the magic string you'll find keys in base58 encoded string form. Those can be imported into many wallets, including bitcoin-qt (importprivkey command), MultiBit and Bitcoin Wallet.

[3550Happiness]

For now, we have managed to do a dump of the build in ROM, but unfortunatly with a lot of damaged data on it. We have managed to pull out the new wallet file, (so the process it self is working. I can go more in to details around this later, if relevant)

Yes, details would be appreciated.

ATPDMJ used to have his Ipad, and do have a old backup of this. I would expect that they Key remains unchanged. So couldent I just get the key from there?

Bitcoin Wallet doesn't run on the iPad, so its not likely it will contain any of the relevant keys.

In case we do manage to get the Key out, how would i actualy import it again? I have found quite a few tutorials, but are confused on a whole new level now  

If you search for the magic string you'll find keys in base58 encoded string form. Those can be imported into many wallets, including bitcoin-qt (importprivkey command), MultiBit and Bitcoin Wallet.

Thanks.

Long story short, the methodology mentioned in this thread, is what we used. It´s a pretty long process, and rather complex, but it worked.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1994705

In the big picture, it´s the same process as you described. There is just a lot of pre req´s that needs to be in place for it to work.
I have found the new key a lot of tims. Further more i have found this text a lot of times: 140851: was loaded by [")/", strongly recommended minimum app version is ", system clock is off by ".". U". For more information, please visit http://logback.qos.ch/codes.html#socket_no_host"...,"File" property not set for appender named [#Q# KEEP YOUR PRIVATE KEYS SAFE! Anyone who can read this can spend your Bitcoins.#44ff44#params for setter !=

After this, there is a looot of other text. At this stage, not something which seams to have any value.