Help Needed Recovering old wallet.dat file from 2011

[wetcat33333]

So I tried this before I got into pywallet because I read a post about some versions of pywallet being modified to steal bitcoins. I knew it would take some time for me to figure all that out. Anyway, I found this on reddit in response to a guy who had 18 btc in a corrupt wallet. It worked, it loaded the wallet without the corruption error, unfortunately it showed 0 btc   

From reddit user musicbunny

"1 in a million:

Make sure you do not lose your backup wallet.dat file.

Make a backup of your backup wallet.dat file. (copy the file)

Cut off the end of the wallet.dat file, so only the first 80% exists. Basically, split the file in two.

Try putting in the first half wallet.dat file you've made from your backup.

If you're lucky it will get to the point of having your 18 btc and then not having bitcoin-qt freak out on you.

If this doesn't work, then you'd probably have to go through the source code of bitcoin-qt and find out how it serializes data/reads data/writes data, and then write a program to get at the data, find the good data, find the bad data, split the two, and then write back."

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

[HCP]

So I tried this before I got into pywallet because I read a post about some versions of pywallet being modified to steal bitcoins. I knew it would take some time for me to figure all that out. Anyway, I found this on reddit in response to a guy who had 18 btc in a corrupt wallet. It worked, it loaded the wallet without the corruption error, unfortunately it showed 0 btc   

One possible flaw in the listed method, for your particular case, is that as your "corrupt" wallet was VERY old, it is most likely a "non-HD" wallet... that is to say, it isn't deterministic, and will only contain "randomly generated" private keys...

So, by cutting off a portion of the wallet, even if it loads, it might well be missing private keys that contain coins... and the "fixed" version of the wallet won't be able to regenerate any "missing" keys, as it will just randomly generate new private keys.

HD Bitcoin Core wallets were not a "thing" until August 2016 with version 0.13.0 and you're talking about a wallet from 2011...

[wetcat33333]

So I tried this before I got into pywallet because I read a post about some versions of pywallet being modified to steal bitcoins. I knew it would take some time for me to figure all that out. Anyway, I found this on reddit in response to a guy who had 18 btc in a corrupt wallet. It worked, it loaded the wallet without the corruption error, unfortunately it showed 0 btc   

One possible flaw in the listed method, for your particular case, is that as your "corrupt" wallet was VERY old, it is most likely a "non-HD" wallet... that is to say, it isn't deterministic, and will only contain "randomly generated" private keys...

So, by cutting off a portion of the wallet, even if it loads, it might well be missing private keys that contain coins... and the "fixed" version of the wallet won't be able to regenerate any "missing" keys, as it will just randomly generate new private keys.

HD Bitcoin Core wallets were not a "thing" until August 2016 with version 0.13.0 and you're talking about a wallet from 2011...

Hmmm.  Well I could try the pywallet just to be sure. I know I tried to mine. Even if it was a tiny amount, I really thought there would have been something in there.  I'll give it a try with the pywallet, can't hurt. Thanks

[HCP]

PyWallet should work OK with an older wallet... it doesn't play nicely with newer versions of wallet.dat as the new data fields confuse it and it generates a number of errors.

I'd definitely recommend giving PyWallet a shot.