Bitcoin core HD wallet

[calkob]

Hi all i have recently upgraded to 0.13.0 and have read a little about the HD feature.  although i did upgrade from the last version and have bitcoin in the wallet now.  i read that i need to remove the wallet.dat and then restart or something, wasnt to sure and didnt want to risk it with out asking the brain boov's. what do i then do with the old wallet.dat,  any help appreciated

[DannyHamilton]

Hi all i have recently upgraded to 0.13.0 and have read a little about the HD feature.  although i did upgrade from the last version and have bitcoin in the wallet now.  i read that i need to remove the wallet.dat and then restart or something, wasnt to sure and didnt want to risk it with out asking the brain boov's. what do i then do with the old wallet.dat,  any help appreciated

Do NOT mess around with your wallet unless you are absolutely certain about the following 2 things:

• You have recently securely stored 1 or more good backups of the wallet in a way that you can recover it if anything goes wrong
• You understand exactly what steps you need to take, and aren't making guesses or misunderstanding something you've been told

[5dollarbill]

guess you will be needin to create a new wallet file and it will then be an HD wallet. then you send out the funds from old wallet to new wallet, only way to migrate I think!!!

don't forget to backup your old wallet in case something goes wrong!!!!

[unholycactus]

Regardless of you trying to test something or not, you should have a backup ready.

[achow101]

Follow these instructions very carefully. Make sure you backup.

• Start with Bitcoin Core stopped
• Move your wallet.dat file out of the Bitcoin datadir
• Start Bitcoin Core. It should create a new HD wallet
• Get an address from the wallet. Copy it somewhere safe.
• Stop Bitcoin Core. Backup the new wallet file in the Bitcoin datadir
• Move that wallet.dat file out of the datadir to a safe location
• Move your old wallet.dat file back into the datadir
• Start Bitcoin Core
• Send all of your Bitcoin to the address you copied down earlier. Wait for a few confirmations
• Stop Bitcoin Core
• Move your new wallet.dat file back into the datadir
• Start Bitcoin Core. You should see the Bitcoin in your wallet now.

[DannyHamilton]

securely stored 1 or more good backups of the wallet

don't forget to backup your old wallet

have a backup ready.

Make sure you backup.

Hopefully by now you've caught on to the most important step.
 

It's a shame it has to be said so often.  Even so, there are still people that come to this forum almost every day and ask for help getting their bitcoins back after they did something they didn't understand and didn't have a backup. Unfortunately, there frequently isn't anything than can be done to help by then.

[calkob]

Follow these instructions very carefully. Make sure you backup.

• Start with Bitcoin Core stopped
• Move your wallet.dat file out of the Bitcoin datadir
• Start Bitcoin Core. It should create a new HD wallet
• Get an address from the wallet. Copy it somewhere safe.
• Stop Bitcoin Core. Backup the new wallet file in the Bitcoin datadir
• Move that wallet.dat file out of the datadir to a safe location
• Move your old wallet.dat file back into the datadir
• Start Bitcoin Core
• Send all of your Bitcoin to the address you copied down earlier. Wait for a few confirmations
• Stop Bitcoin Core
• Move your new wallet.dat file back into the datadir
• Start Bitcoin Core. You should see the Bitcoin in your wallet now.

Great set of instructions thank you  , i think to be safe i will just the funds to another wallet i have in the mean time. 

so a few question's,

• will following this procedure allow me to keep all my old addressess  ?
• at the end you say

  Move your new wallet.dat file back into the datadir

  do this mean overwrite the old one or do i remove it first?

Thanks to all 

 

[cr1776]

Follow these instructions very carefully. Make sure you backup.

• Start with Bitcoin Core stopped
• Move your wallet.dat file out of the Bitcoin datadir
• Start Bitcoin Core. It should create a new HD wallet
• Get an address from the wallet. Copy it somewhere safe.
• Stop Bitcoin Core. Backup the new wallet file in the Bitcoin datadir
• Move that wallet.dat file out of the datadir to a safe location
• Move your old wallet.dat file back into the datadir
• Start Bitcoin Core
• Send all of your Bitcoin to the address you copied down earlier. Wait for a few confirmations
• Stop Bitcoin Core
• Move your new wallet.dat file back into the datadir
• Start Bitcoin Core. You should see the Bitcoin in your wallet now.

Great set of instructions thank you  , i think to be safe i will just the funds to another wallet i have in the mean time. 

so a few question's,

• will following this procedure allow me to keep all my old addressess  ?
• at the end you say

  Move your new wallet.dat file back into the datadir

  do this mean overwrite the old one or do i remove it first?

Thanks to all 

 

It is always best to keep the old wallet somewhere safe, just in case vs overwriting it.
Your old addresses will not be in the new wallet if you follow his steps so you should use new ones, but you will still have the private keys if ever needed.

And backup the new wallet.

[achow101]

Great set of instructions thank you  , i think to be safe i will just the funds to another wallet i have in the mean time. 

so a few question's,

• will following this procedure allow me to keep all my old addressess  ?

No. This moves all of your fund to a new wallet with new addresses.

• at the end you say

  Move your new wallet.dat file back into the datadir

  do this mean overwrite the old one or do i remove it first?

You should move the old one out and put the new one in. Hold onto the old one as your backup of the old one.

[calkob]

Thanks all  

so the old wallet is to be removed and stored somewhere safe and the new wallet continues on.  many thanks

[calkob]

Also will i have to set a new password or encrypt the wallet ?

[achow101]

Also will i have to set a new password or encrypt the wallet ?

Yes. Nothing is carried over from the old wallet.

[calkob]

Ok so i have followed the Procedure above, but no where does my wallet show HD i thought i heard that it was to have an HD bottom right corner?  also should i not have a seed of words?

[achow101]

Ok so i have followed the Procedure above, but no where does my wallet show HD i thought i heard that it was to have an HD bottom right corner?  also should i not have a seed of words?

The HD thing at the bottom is in the next version. Apparently it didn't make it into 0.13.0.

Bitcoin Core does not support BIP39 Mnemonics, so no seed words.

[calkob]

Great so its working fine then.... thanks achow101