Any way to recover?

[MrFujii]

Hey guys, so help would be appreiciated hope I can do anything about this?

I have money on my electrum wallet and originally had my seed and private message saved on my desktop, coming home to a surprise I had found my brother restored my PC due to some virus trouble, and I had lost my electrum wallet, seed and my message. I do have my private key, but when entered it only puts me on Watch mode thus preventing me from retrieving my money. Is there anything I  can do to recover this?

[1714130254]

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[1714130254]

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[1714130254]

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[1714130254]

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[1714130254]

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[unamis76]

You should be able to import and spend from a private key by inserting it instead of the seed while setting up Electrum. Was that what you did?

You can also use another client from this subforum or Bitcoin Core to import the key and spend the funds.

[MrFujii]

Yes, I did and it put the wallet on watch mode, essentially allowing me to view the funds but not spend it.

[unamis76]

That's rather strange, are you sure that's a private key? How does it start? It may start with a 5, K or L.

[MrFujii]

Maybe it's not the private key, it's the refund address I receive my funds on, so not really sure what I can do with it? Is there any contact or support I can find in order to help me retrieve it or?

[steven0021]

Maybe it's not the private key, it's the refund address I receive my funds on, so not really sure what I can do with it? Is there any contact or support I can find in order to help me retrieve it or?

First off to avoid confusion: private keys have 51 or 52 characters[1], addresses won't go above 35 characters[2], and public keys are longer than 60 characters[3]. Seed are combination of multiple words. Entering addresses or public key will only get you a watch only wallet.

Examples:
[1] 1BGnMnu1g9R3wxJqZSqrDNv7ps1yLEzAaW
[2] KykaDLDJN5ZY5HYJDBoedHhQDMYsye5LRbqgefDAdoNhgqzNbYhT
[3] 02f76913e7f1ac86c096621420fcae968a276e892f2b2b0304c9d8a717e9c08e87

Also, people can try to help you get your coins back on your own, but they won't get it back for you like some services support do.

[sase007]

Hey guys, so help would be appreiciated hope I can do anything about this?

I have money on my electrum wallet and originally had my seed and private message saved on my desktop, coming home to a surprise I had found my brother restored my PC due to some virus trouble, and I had lost my electrum wallet, seed and my message. I do have my private key, but when entered it only puts me on Watch mode thus preventing me from retrieving my money. Is there anything I  can do to recover this?

Possibly try using other clients? like: bitcoin core to import the private keys and addresses
If you can't do this, there is no other way of recovering the wallet you had.

[unamis76]

Maybe it's not the private key, it's the refund address I receive my funds on, so not really sure what I can do with it? Is there any contact or support I can find in order to help me retrieve it or?

In Bitcoin, the support regarding private keys is oneself. No way to recover funds without private keys or seeds.

[RealBitcoin]

Use multiUSER operating systems damnit, if more people use the PC.

This shit happened to me as well, well not with bitcoin, but with my personal stuff. A few years ago my cousin have deleted some files from my OS and i have lost all data.

Since then I always backup anything i work on, it would be foolish to let your stuff be messed with other people.

Put a password on your PC damnit.

[Abdussamad]

The only thing you can do is use some general purpose data recovery software to "undelete" the deleted files. But if you keep using the hard drive on which the files were the OS will overwrite the deleted data so you first need to stop using that hard drive. You have to boot your computer off another hard drive or a linux live CD and then you use the data recovery software to find the deleted files on your restored hard drive. If the amount of coins is greater than a few hundred USD you should get this done by professional data recovery people because this is not something that a newbie can do.