Electrum Major Problem

[TanzaniteAmerica]

Hello,

I had an older version of Electrum installed on this computer but a different HD and used it in 2013 and 2014 but not since then. I've installed a new hard drive with a new operating system and today I downloaded the Electrum Standalone executable. This new hard drive has never had any Bitcoin software or data put on it. You could say it is a Bitcoin virgin.

When I opened the Electrum for the first time it immediately displayed all my data, transactions, etc from my Electrum folder in a hidden user/app data/roaming  which was encrypted on another hard drive and different OS. How can this be?? How did my data appear on a fresh install on a fresh hard drive with a new operating system?? Can someone explain how that could possibly happen?? It has shaking my trust and belief to my very core! Any input or suggestions on how this could happen will be greatly appreciated. 

Thank you,

Bill

[btchris]

What versions of the OS are/were on both hard drives?

Did you use any migration tools, such as Windows Easy Transfer?

Do you use any backup tools?

Is you PC in a domain (is it a business PC)?

Are you using Windows Server Essentials (Small Business Server) on your network?

Do you have both hard drives plugged in at once? Which HD is the new one and which is the old one (I mean their names, e.g. "C: is the old one, D: is the new one")?

What is the result of doing this (feel free to X out anything sensitive if you'd like, such as your username):
 1. Start, type "cmd", press enter.
 2. type "set", press enter.

[guitarplinker]

It sounds like you're wondering why your transactions and bitcoin address history was showing up even though you encrypted your old Electrum wallet. The explanation to that, is that Electrum only encrypts private keys with your passphrase, and doesn't encrypt your public keys. If you open up your wallet file with any Notepad style program, you'll see that the addresses all show up in plain text, but all the private keys to these addresses are encrypted. Then when Electrum connects, it will display the TX history for those keys.

[btchris]

It sounds like you're wondering why your transactions and bitcoin address history was showing up even though you encrypted your old Electrum wallet.

I didn't interpret OP's post way... I thought OP was saying that Electrum somehow found their wallet even though OP didn't copy it from the old HD to the new and didn't do a restore.