How To Recover Bitcoin From Old Wallets

[JollyGood]

Hello All,

This is my first post here.

Upon using an old laptop I saw 2 wallets files. I remember backing them when I set up a couple of servers last year on Amazon EC2. I ran full BTCd on them. Soon after I deleted my account at AWS.

I cannot recall exactly how much but there are small amounts of Bitcoin on them.

I do remember setting up another BTCd and replacing these wallets with the newly created ones but the wallets were not recognised.

Please advise on how can I recover the BTC from the wallets in the easiest way.

Thank you

[HCP]

So confirming you have a couple of wallet.dat files? If so, then Bitcoin Core is an option... although you'll need to wait for it to sync, then swap the new wallet.dat file with your old wallet.dat.

There is also pywallet: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.0

That might help you extract the private keys etc

[k@suy]

Meaning you have a wallet.dat file and you want to access it. I think you can download the bitcoin standalone wallet and put that wallet.file on the folder something like C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Roaming\Bitcoin . I hope this works.

[JollyGood]

So confirming you have a couple of wallet.dat files? If so, then Bitcoin Core is an option... although you'll need to wait for it to sync, then swap the new wallet.dat file with your old wallet.dat.

There is also pywallet: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.0

That might help you extract the private keys etc

Thank you HCP

I do not remember encrypting the wallets or BTCd when I ran it. I will check out pywallet and what it does because I am not familiar with it, I have been away from the crypto scene for some time.

Many month ago I replaced the old wallet.dat files with a syncd BTCd running on AWS but it did not recognise the wallets.

When you say Bitcoin Core is an option, do you mean to download the latest Bitcoin desktop wallet, wait for it to sync and then replace the new wallet with the backed up ones?

[JollyGood]

Meaning you have a wallet.dat file and you want to access it. I think you can download the bitcoin standalone wallet and put that wallet.file on the folder something like C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Roaming\Bitcoin . I hope this works.

Thank you k@suy

I will download the latest desktop client on to the same laptop and will let it run until it syncs, then will replace the wallet.dat files.

As the wallet.dat files were not recognised on the BTCd I ran on AWS, I presumed they would not be recognised if I replicated it on a desktop. I will try and update here when it I have news.

[JollyGood]

I just saw the blockchain is over 100GB, it will take a long time to sync.

I also found three wallet.dat files in total. There are probably a few more hidden away which I will try to locate. The ones I found are named as:

0.002wallet.dat
0.0004wallet.dat
wallet.dat

I think it is safe to state that one wallet has an unknown amount of bitcoin whereas the other two have a combined balance of 0.0024 BTC

[Fantum]

Why not just use the Electrum wallet? There is an option to recover old addresses from wallet.dat file. That way you don't have to download the entire bitcoin blockchain.

[JollyGood]

Why not just use the Electrum wallet? There is an option to recover old addresses from wallet.dat file. That way you don't have to download the entire bitcoin blockchain.

Thank you for letting me know. I am on 51% download on my laptop as I type. I will check this out and update here.

Instead of receiving replies here I actually received a PM from someone asking me to send my wallets to him so he could recover my bitcoins for me as it would take 4 hours for me to decrypt and then encrypt my wallets and he said it was a complicated procedure

[HCP]

Please tell me you didn't send wallet files to "someone" who PM'd you??!?

Unless that person is a well respected and/or trusted individual on these forums... and that can be hard to determine these days given account sales and such... there is a chance you just lost whatever coins you had in those wallets

People who offer "services" via unsolicited PM's are very rarely genuine... #justSaying

[vh]

Thank you for letting me know. I am on 51% download on my laptop as I type. I will check this out and update here.

It gets much slower as you approach 100%, where almost all blocks are full.   That last 15% can take at least a few days if not close to a week to finish.

[JollyGood]

@ HCP
I was a little surprised to receive an email out of the blue. I wrote back thanking him but I politely declined. I do not know anyone here now, all the names are new since I was last here years ago.

Thank you for the tip though, I agree in that people who offer "services" via unsolicited PM's are very rarely genuine... #justSaying indeed


@ vh
You are right this is dragging a lot. I looked at the screen on the lappy just now, it is at 56.28% and think the trusted friend of a heating laptop deserves better... 100% over days upon days it a lot

When I was using an EC2 instance previously to test some code it took around two day mark or so for Bitcoin to fully sync in order to run a daemon

It seems I probably will not be able to get the bitcoins back but the only way to be sure is either send them off to someone who has a syncd wallet or wait for the remaining 43.72% or so to sync before I start swapping wallets. I think the latter is preferred

As I get more and more active here on this forum and take more and more of an interest in altcoins again after spending time away, the more things are coming back to me. I even dug out my old Bitcoin business website project which I put away thinking it would not work when the price dropped but have started coding it again as of today. Surprisingly it seems over 90% was completed before I shelved it. I think I can probably have it up and running for kind people here to test and then provide feedback within a couple of weeks if I worked a few hours a day on it

Yes, it is all is beginning to feel familiar again... including the syncing of blockchains

[HI-TEC99]

You could export the private keys from your wallet.dat files, install the electrum wallet and import them into it.

https://electrum.org/#download

Electrum syncs almost immediately, so you get control of your coins back immediately.

Open the bin folder inside the Bitcoin folder that's in your program files folder.

Put your Bitcoin wallet.dat files in it one at a time, start Bitcoin core, then use these instructions explaining how to use Bitcoin core to export the private keys..

Click file, then receiving addresses. Find the address you sent coins to in the window that opens, right click it, and select copy address. Close the addresses window.

Click help, then debug window.

In the debug window that opens click console.

In the text box at the bottom of the window type

dumpprivkey yourAddress

where yourAddress is the address you sent coins to and copied earlier.

Press your enter key.

The private key for that address should appear in the console window. Copy it.

This is an example private key.

L48toSntMVhC2az4KAQCWscrQGfPbT55yCgzM5cmx9Ao69pTdwrq

Download and install electrum.

https://electrum.org/#download

Import your private key into it using these instructions.

http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html#can-i-import-private-keys-from-other-bitcoin-clients

Afterwards your coins should be spendable.

[JollyGood]

@ HI-TEC99
Ah that explains things more, thank you. I will try and do this later today if I get a chance otherwise maybe tomorrow.

[Sakamoto09]

As a beginner I dont  know how to recover bitcoins in your old wallet and how to get i from that wallet.But my suggestion is just replace the wallet.
Electrum syncs almost immediately, so you get control of your coins back immediately.

Open the bin folder inside the Bitcoin folder that's in your program files folder.

Put your Bitcoin wallet.dat files in it one at a time, start Bitcoin core, then use these instructions explaining how to use Bitcoin core to export the private keys..