help needed restoring my old wallet

[rvdlaar]

hi,

i have these parts, but I have no idea on how to restore the wallet so I can retrieve the bitcoins:

the address
the wallet.dat (not corrupted)
my passphrase

can anybody tell me what steps to take in order to retrieve the bitcoins?

Thanks in advance

[OmegaStarScream]

You didn't mention the wallet but I will guess It's Electrum. If by the passphrase you mean the 12 words seed then you can use that to recover your entire wallet using the restore option:



If by the passphrase, you mean the password that you used to encrypt the wallet then you will simply need to place the wallet.dat in the AppData folder and open the wallet from there, It will ask you for the password If you want to export private keys, sign messages, send funds etc.

[rvdlaar]

thanks for the reply. I ment the encryption password.
I don't know which wallet I used, but since I'm a Mac user it is probably:

- bitcoin-qt
- electrum

Update:
I tried two things

Py.wallet
retried wallet.dat --dumpwallet
it results into Python crashing and __db.001 to __db.006 files.
I have no idea what to do with these.

Downloaded Bitcoin-QT
started the application, closed it. removed the .wallet file it created and replaced it with my old "wallet.dat".
as we speak, it is still performing the rescan.

[rvdlaar]

also tried Electrum just now, in the Install Wizard I chose to recover my wallet. next, selected my old .wallet file.
then I was asked about some keystore.

I don't have my private keys or a hardware device. that leaves me with "create a new seed" or "I already have a seed".

Which one do I need to pick?

[odolvlobo]

Downloaded Bitcoin-QT
started the application, closed it. removed the .wallet file it created and replaced it with my old "wallet.dat".
as we speak, it is still performing the rescan.

You don't need to resync the block chain. QT should be able to list the addresses you are interested in, and you can do something like dumpprivkey to get private keys. You can wait for the resync if you want to use that software, but you could at least make sure that it can read your wallet.dat file correctly before going any further.

also tried Electrum just now, in the Install Wizard I chose to recover my wallet. next, selected my old .wallet file.
then I was asked about some keystore.

I don't have my private keys or a hardware device. that leaves me with "create a new seed" or "I already have a seed".

Which one do I need to pick?

You shouldn't need a seed unless one was used to initialize the wallet in the first place.

[HI-TEC99]

Downloaded Bitcoin-QT
started the application, closed it. removed the .wallet file it created and replaced it with my old "wallet.dat".
as we speak, it is still performing the rescan.

You don't need to resync the block chain. QT should be able to list the addresses you are interested in, and you can do something like dumpprivkey to get private keys. You can wait for the resync if you want to use that software, but you could at least make sure that it can read your wallet.dat file correctly before going any further.

Search for all the Bitcoin addresses that Bitcoin-QT shows on this website. That site will tell you if an address contains Bitcoins.

http://blockchain.info/

To view the addresses in Bitcoin-QT click "file" in the menu, then click "receiving addresses" in the drop down list that appears.



If blockchain.info shows an address contains coins you can either wait for up to a week for Bitcoin-QT to sync, or use a different wallet to spend them immediately.

If you want fast access to your Bitcoins you need to extract their private keys from Bitcoin-QT, then import those private keys into alternative wallet software like electrum.

To extract the private keys click "help" in the Bitcoin-QT menu, then click "debug window" in the drop down list that appears.



Click the tab labelled "console" in the debug window that appears.



Type dumpprivkey, then a space, then your Bitcoin address in the text box at the bottom of the console window. This is an example.

dumpprivkey 1Cgu5PQyTYrZn4VtAs2T1FHf1ayXVYHNDt



Afterwards press your enter key to view the private key for your Bitcoin address. There's an example private key (L4RY4tv1Qpr4FVxtSLnr7vJiUCvk7A7C2Cd6M7QSU2BkRtj9vhnd) shown in the screenshot.



Copy the private key, then download and install the electrum wallet from here.

https://electrum.org/#download

Use your private key(s) in electrum using these instructions.

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

Those instructions send your Bitcoins to your new electrum wallet. After the transaction has six confirmations you can send your Bitcoins from electrum to wherever you like.