Accessing Wallet in New Installation

[Fubey]

Program = Bitcoin Core version v0.21.0
OS = Win 10
Sony VAIO

I constantly run the above. My question is no doubt a common one. If someone can point me to an existing topic that would be great. My newbie mistake was allowing a Pruned mode to run when I first installed a year ago. I had some bitcoins saved both at the wallet and in a back up on a USB. A few weeks ago I went to access my wallet and found I couldn't. I was given the "your are running a pruned node" advice. I was directed to rescan and found I couldn't do that due to pruned node. I'm currently waiting for the new software to catch up with all transactions.

I know that my wallet is stored as a .dat file. I now want to paste my saved wallet.dat file into the wallet folder and hopefully see my balance.

Is it just a matter of replacing my wallet.dat with the existing .dat file whilst the program is closed and then starting it up?
Is there a command I type to see the balance of my back up dat file?

If there is an existing thread on this basic topic somewhere please point me to it. Thank you in advance to anyone who can point me to some reading on commands generally and this topic in particular.

[odolvlobo]

When you switch the wallet.dat, you must do a rescan, although it might do that for you automatically. The rescan finds all transactions affecting the addresses in your wallet, this is necessary so that the wallet can display the transactions and balance correctly.

The problem with a pruned node in this case is that only recent transactions are stored, so the rescan will not be able to find earlier transactions.

[ranochigo]

Pruned nodes only keeps the information that is relevant to the wallet and discards everything else. You cannot switch wallets when running a pruned node.

I assuming with the reindex that you're currently doing, you have turned the pruning off? If so, you can switch the wallets whenever you like, with a quick rescan of course. You can just replace the wallet.dat in the data directory, or if you have several you can just put all of them in the data directory and naming each of them differently (wallet1.dat, wallet2.dat, etc). You can open them by clicking on the file at the top left and go to Open Wallet in Bitcoin Core. You should be able to switch the wallet.dat as and when you like.

Bitcoin Core should automatically do a rescan and that can take several minutes to an hour. It should show rescanning... with the start up screen.

[DaveF]

Bitcoin Core should automatically do a rescan and that can take several minutes to an hour. It should show rescanning... with the start up screen.

If it does not go start a rescan on it's own, go to Window-> Console -> (can also use CTRL-T) in the gui and run rescanblockchain

ALSO:
Depending on the speed of the machine, the amount of RAM and the speed of the hard drive it an actually be several hours to do this.
Sony has been licensing the VAIO name to different companies depending on where you are in the world.
Some are ultra top of the line models, others are crap.

-Dave

[Fubey]

When you switch the wallet.dat, you must do a rescan, although it might do that for you automatically. The rescan finds all transactions affecting the addresses in your wallet, this is necessary so that the wallet can display the transactions and balance correctly.

The problem with a pruned node in this case is that only recent transactions are stored, so the rescan will not be able to find earlier transactions.

Thank you for your reply. Very good information.

[Fubey]

Pruned nodes only keeps the information that is relevant to the wallet and discards everything else. You cannot switch wallets when running a pruned node.

I assuming with the reindex that you're currently doing, you have turned the pruning off? If so, you can switch the wallets whenever you like, with a quick rescan of course. You can just replace the wallet.dat in the data directory, or if you have several you can just put all of them in the data directory and naming each of them differently (wallet1.dat, wallet2.dat, etc). You can open them by clicking on the file at the top left and go to Open Wallet in Bitcoin Core. You should be able to switch the wallet.dat as and when you like.

Bitcoin Core should automatically do a rescan and that can take several minutes to an hour. It should show rescanning... with the start up screen.

Thank you for taking the time and sharing your knowledge. This is very useful. I didn't know that multiple wallets can be placed in the wallet directory. And, yes, when I started the loading the entire blockchain again, I noticed the option to turn off the pruning mode. Only then did I understand how I got in this situation in the first place. I've only got 50 Aus dollars in the wallet but the whole exercise is to be confident in buying and storing an investment. Thanks so much for helping out.