Hi,
It's just I simple question I have while my wallet is syncing.
Downloaded the entire blockchain just to see if my Bitcoins were still OK, recovered an old wallet that I had backed up on Dropbox. Entered my passphrase, so far so good. Figured it would be a good practice to change my passphrase to a different one (I generate random passwords with KeePass so no chance of brute force it) and didn't updated my keepass database backup online, next thing I know when I try to do that is that that hard drive isnt responding and then puff it was dead.
Question is, I got an old wallet with a password that I know worked back then but then I changed it. Can I recover my old wallet with the old password???
Thanks!
Yes.
The password is used to encrypt the backup file, so the new password will never work on the old backup (it was encrypted with your old password). It will only ever work on the new backup (which was encrypted with the new password, but which you didn't get a chance to backup yet).
Notice that changing your password didn't increase your security at all as long as that old backup was still sitting around. If someone got a hold of that old backup and knew your old password, then your new password will have accomplished nothing.
If you are concerned that your old password is compromised and you want your bitcoins to be secured with a new password, what you should do is:
- Create a new empty wallet
- Set a new password for this new wallet
- Create a secure backup of this new wallet
- Send all your bitcoins from your old wallet to this new wallet
