Are you still able to access bitcoins if the wallet app was deleted?

[cr00k]

long story short a friend of mine had about 3 bitcoins on his computer and his brother accidentally deleted his wallet application..

my question is will he still be able to access the coins from the wallet.dat file? thanks!

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[bitman442]

As long as he still has his wallet.dat file, then yes. He just needs to reinstall his wallet program and then copy his original wallet.dat to where it's supposed to go (not sure where exactly off hand but Google knows) The wallet program just reads whatever is in the wallet.dat file on the pc.

[cr00k]

As long as he still has his wallet.dat file, then yes. He just needs to reinstall his wallet program and then copy his original wallet.dat to where it's supposed to go (not sure where exactly off hand but Google knows) The wallet program just reads whatever is in the wallet.dat file on the pc.

thanks for the reply! now another question if i were to remove his wallet.dat file and put it on my computer and then open the wallet would that work?

[whiskers75]

Yes.

[cr00k]

Yes.

ah great so i took his whole bitcoin folder from the roaming folder.. now i have my wallet installed on my computer but no bitcoins in my wallet. can i just replace the whole folder?

and since he hasent open his wallet is over a year how long do you think it will take for the bitcoins to appear in the wallet? sorry for the all the questions!


thanks!!!

[jerkoff]

The coins are not in the wallet, the wallet contains the private/public keys and adresses.
The client reads the blockchain and whenever it encounters coins belonging to that wallet, it will print those as yours.

You could also take the addresses in the wallet (in the receive tab) and enter those on blockchain.info to see how much btc they have.

[bitman442]

You should be able to replace the whole folder, then just open your wallet and let it sit for a long time, it has to download all of the blockchain info before it's usable. It will show the progress at the bottom. It will take up a few gigs of space on your HDD also.