Wallet.dat I haven't used since 2011 and I can't get it to open. need help, plea

[ColeSloth]

I mined a few coins back in 2011 (Unsure what program I used for this) on an old laptop and then pretty much forgot all about bitcoin, but I did save the wallet.dat from it. Now I'm trying to recover those coins, but I installed bit core and tried swapping the wallet.dat out, but after that when I try to re-open bit core it immediately just pops up an error box with a red x and an ok button to click. I'd really like to recover the few coins I had, but as of now, I'm stuck. Any ideas? Help would be appreciated. 

[achow101]

Can you describe the error and post a screenshot?

[ColeSloth]

Can you describe the error and post a screenshot?

No description for the error. Even when I control+c the error box.

Here's the screen capt. https://i.imgur.com/Sas6ly1.png

[achow101]

Can you give us the debug log? Go to %APPDATA%/Bitcoin and find the debug.log file. Post the contents of that file here. If it is too big, post the last 100-200 lines.

[ColeSloth]

Can you give us the debug log? Go to %APPDATA%/Bitcoin and find the debug.log file. Post the contents of that file here. If it is too big, post the last 100-200 lines.

So far I have failed at being able to locate this. I'm on windows 10, fyi.

[shorena]

Can you give us the debug log? Go to %APPDATA%/Bitcoin and find the debug.log file. Post the contents of that file here. If it is too big, post the last 100-200 lines.

So far I have failed at being able to locate this. I'm on windows 10, fyi.

Not sure this still works in win10, but try to press Win + R. This should open "run". There you enter:

Code:

%APPDATA%\Bitcoin\debug.log

It should either open the log directly or ask for a programm. Use something like notepad.

[DannyHamilton]

Note that if this wallet.dat is somehow damaged in a way that won't be able to open it with Bitcoin Core, you may still be able to extract all (or at least most) of the private keys from the file with a tool like pywallet.  You could then just import those keys into a working Bitcoin Core (or any other wallet that allows importing private keys).

[ColeSloth]

Not sure this still works in win10, but try to press Win + R. This should open "run". There you enter:

Code:

%APPDATA%\Bitcoin\debug.log

It should either open the log directly or ask for a program. Use something like notepad.
[/quote]

I'm an idiot. Forgot I installed Bitcoin on a a drive other than C. Here we go. Should be anything pertinent.

2015-12-13 17:30:41




2015-12-13 17:30:41 Bitcoin version v0.11.2 (2015-11-10 14:46:18 +0100)
2015-12-13 17:30:41 Using OpenSSL version OpenSSL 1.0.1k 8 Jan 2015
2015-12-13 17:30:41 Using BerkeleyDB version Berkeley DB 4.8.30: (April  9, 2010)
2015-12-13 17:30:41 Default data directory C:\Users\Bob\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin
2015-12-13 17:30:41 Using data directory D:\BitCoin
2015-12-13 17:30:41 Using config file D:\BitCoin\bitcoin.conf
2015-12-13 17:30:41 Using at most 125 connections (2048 file descriptors available)
2015-12-13 17:30:41 Using 4 threads for script verification
2015-12-13 17:30:41 Using wallet wallet.dat
2015-12-13 17:30:41 scheduler thread start
2015-12-13 17:30:41 init message: Verifying wallet...
2015-12-13 17:30:41 CDBEnv::Open: LogDir=D:\BitCoin\database ErrorFile=D:\BitCoin\db.log
2015-12-13 17:30:41 Failed to rename wallet.dat to wallet.1450027841.bak
2015-12-13 17:30:44 scheduler thread interrupt
2015-12-13 17:30:44 Shutdown: In progress...
2015-12-13 17:30:44 StopNode()
2015-12-13 17:30:44 Shutdown: done
2015-12-13 17:30:50 GUI: "registerShutdownBlockReason: Successfully registered: Bitcoin Core didn't yet exit safely..."
2015-12-13 17:30:51




2015-12-13 17:30:51 Bitcoin version v0.11.2 (2015-11-10 14:46:18 +0100)
2015-12-13 17:30:51 Using OpenSSL version OpenSSL 1.0.1k 8 Jan 2015
2015-12-13 17:30:51 Using BerkeleyDB version Berkeley DB 4.8.30: (April  9, 2010)
2015-12-13 17:30:51 Default data directory C:\Users\Bob\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin
2015-12-13 17:30:51 Using data directory D:\BitCoin
2015-12-13 17:30:51 Using config file D:\BitCoin\bitcoin.conf
2015-12-13 17:30:51 Using at most 125 connections (2048 file descriptors available)
2015-12-13 17:30:51 Using 4 threads for script verification
2015-12-13 17:30:51 Using wallet wallet.dat
2015-12-13 17:30:51 scheduler thread start
2015-12-13 17:30:51 init message: Verifying wallet...
2015-12-13 17:30:51 CDBEnv::Open: LogDir=D:\BitCoin\database ErrorFile=D:\BitCoin\db.log
2015-12-13 17:30:51 Failed to rename wallet.dat to wallet.1450027851.bak
2015-12-13 17:30:53 scheduler thread interrupt
2015-12-13 17:30:53 Shutdown: In progress...
2015-12-13 17:30:53 StopNode()
2015-12-13 17:30:53 Shutdown: done

[ColeSloth]

Note that if this wallet.dat is somehow damaged in a way that won't be able to open it with Bitcoin Core, you may still be able to extract all (or at least most) of the private keys from the file with a tool like pywallet.  You could then just import those keys into a working Bitcoin Core (or any other wallet that allows importing private keys).

Thanks. I'm kind of wondering if this is the case. I'd be a total noob to using Python. I have no programming experience or experience with pywallet, so I'd need my hand held on that one through pretty much the whole process if that program is my only option for extracting the private keys.

[cr1776]

2015-12-13 17:30:41 Failed to rename wallet.dat to wallet.1450027841.bak

Could it be a Windows permission issue since it appears it can't rename the file?

[ColeSloth]

2015-12-13 17:30:41 Failed to rename wallet.dat to wallet.1450027841.bak

Could it be a Windows permission issue since it appears it can't rename the file?

Doesn't seem to be. I just tried opening the permissions of the wallet.dat file all the way open for everyone to modify it and even tried running bitcoin-qt as administrator, with no luck.

[DannyHamilton]

- snip -
2015-12-13 17:30:51 Failed to rename wallet.dat to wallet.1450027851.bak
- snip -

This is a message that is found in walletdb.cpp in the  CWalletDB::Recover method.

CWalletDB::Recover is invoked only after the wallet has already run into some other problem with the wallet and is attempting to recover from the problem.

The comments in the source code state:

Code:

// Try to (very carefully!) recover wallet.dat if there is a problem.
    // Recovery procedure:
    // move wallet.dat to wallet.timestamp.bak
    // Call Salvage with fAggressive=true to
    // get as much data as possible.
    // Rewrite salvaged data to wallet.dat
    // Set -rescan so any missing transactions will be
    // found.

Moving the wallet to wallet.timestamp.bak is accomplished by invoking dbenv.dbenv->dbrename()

So, it appears that for some reason Bitcoin Core has decided that there is something wrong with the wallet.dat and then failed to make a backup of it with dbenv.dbenv->dbrename().

Once that step fails, CWalletDB::Recover stops and makes no further efforts to recover the wallet.dat

Perhaps someone a bit more familiar with the wallet startup process wills stop in to help, but if not then pywallet or some similar tool may be your best option.

[achow101]

Perhaps someone a bit more familiar with the wallet startup process wills stop in to help, but if not then pywallet or some similar tool may be your best option.

It looks like pywallet isn't able to help him either: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1288078.msg13238597#msg13238597

[ColeSloth]

Yes. I have now tried pywallet unsuccessfully. My wallet seems pretty doomed at this point. Still hoping for ideas. Thanks for helping thus far.

[BTC LOVER]

MAybe u could try an older wallet frum github and run this on an win xp laptop/pc to get this going

Maybe something like this would help
Anyways wish you good luck

regards
BTC LOVER