I use electrum and its great and easy to send/receive bitcoin. There might be a chance I will be resetting my laptop and doing a clean reinstall install of my laptop. its windows 7. I believe as long as i have that electrum phrase... then i would be able to recover the bitcoin i currently have?
You believe in something correct. The seed or electrum phrase as you call it is all you need to restore the wallet.
Thus whether its my computer that gets a clean reinstallation, or new computer or use someone else's computer... that would never be an issue?
No issues electrum seeds from 1.x versions even work on the newer 2.x. versions.
Nope as long as you stay on the same major version of electrum. E.g. updating from 1.9.7 to 1.9.8 is fine as they use the same kind of seed. But electrum2 versions use different seeds that are not working on electrum1.x versions and vise versa. thanks vfilchef for the correction.
So basically I would need the long electrum phrase and my electrum password and that is all?
You dont need the password, just the seed.
So basically i would install electrum on laptop after the clean reinstall then put the 20 word phrase and then the electrum password and that is all? Or is it a long process?
Nope, just put in the words, set a new password (or the same as before) and you are back.
The other thing I thought about was wouldn't it be a better idea to send the bitcoins to blockchain in the meantime? Thus send the bitcoin to blockchain and keep the bitcoin there. Then once i get my computer clean reinstall, then send the bitcoin to my new electrum wallet? Would it be actually recommended to use the same electrum wallet if doing a clean reinstall of laptop?
I would not recommend using blockchain.info as a wallet in between, but its certainly possible. I also see no problem in using the same electrum wallet,
unless you reinstalled because of issues with malware.The reason why i ask is this because i'm going to have my laptop looked at for another issue and if something happens to my laptop in the repair, then i want to make sure my bitcoins are safe.
If you feel unsure that it will work, make a test. Create a new wallet, transfer a small amount there and restore it from seed on a different machine.
Whats the best recommendation for my situation? Send the bitcoin to blockchain from electrum until i get my computer fixed... or just don't bother with it since i have that electrum phrase and password and thus with that, i wouldn't have any issues. However i would like to take precaution is why i considered sending the bitcoin to either blockchain or a gambling site in the meantime. I have a blockchain account but never stored any bitcoin there but i assume its very easy to send/receive from it.
I would not bother with something different unless you have a weak password that might get brute forced by some shady bitcoin lower working for the company that fixes the computer.
