How to recover btc after windows reinstall

[morbius55]

I ran a different recovery program and it found wallet.dat folder 96kb, a chainstate folder and  a blocks folder. When it had found these folders it classed them as in good condition yet the wallet dat folder is only 96kb? can that be right.
If someone else had accessed this file and removed any keys would that reduce it to 96kb. Thanks.

That sounds exactly right. I tested generating a wallet.dat with a very old version of Bitcoin core and it was 96KB. Make some backups of it then test it to find out if it's not corrupted.

Have you tried opening the wallet.dat from inside Bitcoin core yet? You don't need to sync Bitcoin core to find out if the wallet isn't corrupted.

I thought that a used wallet dat file would be larger than 96kb ie one with transactions. Thanks again for your reply.

[1714145253]

1714145253

[morbius55]

Which Bitcoin wallet should I download? to give it a try. thanks.

[HCP]

Wallet.dat files only work with Bitcoin Core. As far as I know, no other wallet application works with this file format. There is also the pywallet script that supposedly works with wallet.dat files, but I've found that it is a little outdated and doesn't play nicely with newer versions of wallet.dat files from newer versions of Bitcoin Core.

As HITEC suggested, I'd make a few backup copies of what you have recovered... then, grab a copy of Bitcoin Core... depending on how old your copy of Core was... you can find all the history releases here: https://bitcoin.org/bin/

I'd probably start with 0.14.x and work backwards until you find a version that works with the wallet.dat you have. I think the newer versions will read and "upgrade" older versions, (hence why you might want to make multiple backup copies) but I'm not 100% on that.

Otherwise, check out Pywallet (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.0) and see if that works with the wallet.dat

[HI-TEC99]

Which Bitcoin wallet should I download? to give it a try. thanks.

That depends on what version of Bitcoin core created the wallet.dat file. You said you think it was installed in 2013. The file format used in wallet.dat files changed in version 0.8, and that version was first available in early 2013.

I know that the wallet was installed i think in 2013 so assuming it is core?. Thanks.

If a version after 0.8 created your wallet.dat file then the version of Bitcoin core available at this link should be able to open it.

https://bitcoin.org/en/download

Like HCP says, first check if the latest version from that link can open your wallet.dat file.

If you have to try using very old versions DON'T run them on an internet connected computer. Run them offline inside a virtual machine created by virtual box or vmware.

Bitcoin.org  gives this warning about the very old versions it provides.

https://bitcoin.org/bin/insecure/README.txt

The releases in this directory contain known security flaws and should not be used.

If you need to try a version from before 0.8 you can find one here. However, the same security precautions apply. Run it offline inside a virtual machine.

http://eligius.st/~luke-jr/programs/bitcoin/files/bitcoin-qt/0.7.3/test/rc3/

[achow101]

That depends on what version of Bitcoin core created the wallet.dat file. You said you think it was installed in 2013. The file format used in wallet.dat files changed in version 0.8, and that version was first available in early 2013.

The latest versions Core will be able to read any previous wallet format. The wallet format is forwards compatible (something created in the past can be read by stuff made later) but not backwards compatible (something created now may not work on previous versions).

[HI-TEC99]

That depends on what version of Bitcoin core created the wallet.dat file. You said you think it was installed in 2013. The file format used in wallet.dat files changed in version 0.8, and that version was first available in early 2013.

The latest versions Core will be able to read any previous wallet format. The wallet format is forwards compatible (something created in the past can be read by stuff made later) but not backwards compatible (something created now may not work on previous versions).

Doh!

Thanks for pointing that out. I should have tested it before opening my big mouth. I just tried creating a wallet.dar with version 0.7.0, then opening it with the latest version and it worked.

[morbius55]

So to summarise, download latest bitcoin core.
delete wallet.dat from it.
Replace with my recovered wallet .dat.
Start bitcoin core.
Cross everything.
Is that correct?. Thanks and sorry for novice questions.

[HI-TEC99]

So to summarise, download latest bitcoin core.
delete wallet.dat from it.
Replace with my recovered wallet .dat.
Start bitcoin core.
Cross everything.
Is that correct?. Thanks and sorry for novice questions.

Yes, the wallet.dat should be placed in the folder named Bitcoin that's inside the appdata folder. These instructions explain how to open it if you don't know how to do it.

Click the windows start button, then copy and paste the line of text below into the search box that appears, then press the enter key to open the hidden folder containing your Bitcoin wallet.dat file.

%appdata%\Bitcoin

This is what your search box should look like after you have copied and pasted the line above into it.

[morbius55]

Does salvage wallet run automatically in latest Bitcoin core?.
It's looking like I need to figure out how to setup and use Pywallet.

[HCP]

Does salvage wallet run automatically in latest Bitcoin core?.
It's looking like I need to figure out how to setup and use Pywallet.

I take it that this means that Bitcoin Core was unable to read the recovered wallet.dat file that you attempted to import?  Did you get any errors... or did it just come up with a zero balance? If it came up with a zero balance, it is highly likely that this was just an empty wallet that had been generated by an earlier installation of Bitcoin Core but was never used.

If you got errors, can you post the debug.log from when you attempted to load the recovered wallet.dat. NOTE: Please use pastebin.com for this and just post the pastebin link!

[morbius55]

Does salvage wallet run automatically in latest Bitcoin core?.
It's looking like I need to figure out how to setup and use Pywallet.

I take it that this means that Bitcoin Core was unable to read the recovered wallet.dat file that you attempted to import?  Did you get any errors... or did it just come up with a zero balance? If it came up with a zero balance, it is highly likely that this was just an empty wallet that had been generated by an earlier installation of Bitcoin Core but was never used.

If you got errors, can you post the debug.log from when you attempted to load the recovered wallet.dat. NOTE: Please use pastebin.com for this and just post the pastebin link!

Hopefully done this right,  never used pastebin before.
https://pastebin.com/tCbE7E2C

[HCP]

Can you also post the db.log file as well? It seems like the recovered wallet.dat is corrupt. The "can't rename" error you see in the debug.log seems to be indicative of an issue during the parsing of the wallet by the DB functions.

[HI-TEC99]

Hopefully done this right,  never used pastebin before.
https://pastebin.com/tCbE7E2C

Is that log the result of opening the wallet.dat in core, or the result of using the salvagewallet option on it? The "can't rename" error often occurs when using the salvagewallet option.

[morbius55]

Hopefully done this right,  never used pastebin before.
https://pastebin.com/tCbE7E2C

Is that log the result of opening the wallet.dat in core, or the result of using the salvagewallet option on it? The "can't rename" error often occurs when using the salvagewallet option.

It is from opening in Bitcoin core.

[morbius55]

https://pastebin.com/aGgzCWk9

[BitcSeo]

Just had a preliminary search of the drive using recuva but only let it run for 15 minutes before it was indicating that it had found 10's of thousands of files. Why so many?

No offense, but if this is the level of questions you're asking while searching to recover $84k, I'd say STOP IT NOW and hire a professional data recovery service.

i wanted to make same suggestion to morbius55, because i've notice some incompetency from most of the question(s) above. data restoration,back-up are not task mean't for basic computer user's. And, if, you are advance computer user's you should be familiar with a specific recovery tool because what seem to be user-friendly for mr A will not be for mr B.

☞Whichever, i suggest you hire an expert, who is competent enough to recover those coin otherwise you stand the risk of losing all should in case thing's go wrong.

Goodluck
Bitcseo

[HCP]

https://pastebin.com/aGgzCWk9

Looks like that recovered wallet.dat file is indeed corrupted so that Bitcoin Core is now unable to open it... have you tried with the -salvagewallet option?

If that does not work, then your only other option would be attempting to use pywallet to at least retrieve some private keys from the wallet.dat file. Another user had a similar issue with a corrupted file after recovery here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2012533.0

[morbius55]

Do I run salvagewallet from the shortcut I created for Bitcoin Qt by opening properties then typing salvagewallet after exe leaving a space first, then hit apply and okay?.

[morbius55]

Doesn't even seem to try to salvage.

[morbius55]

After salvage attempt.     https://pastebin.com/30PXfJmR