bitcoin qt wallet on USB seems to be reseted - i fear i lost EVERYTHING!

[freedik]

the complete client. i installed it on my USB and always launched it from my USB

[TheD1ceMan]

so here's a little update if someone's interested and might has another idea:

birdy's tipp (thanks again man) unfortunately didn't work. i reinstalled the bitcoin-qt client and copied the wallet.dat into the mentioned folder. unfortunately no dice- still noting..

what can i say.. i haven't abandoned hope yet and i am still hoping i can somehow retrieve my coins. i am wondering what i might have done in the first place that everythings gone.
but i need a break for now. haven't really sleeped the last night and my GF is coming over soon. i better think about what i am gonna say to her about that f-up situation. it's my money but it will reflect on her (holidays, gifts, my mood..).

thanks again and if someone HAS ANY idea what might has happened and how to get back my coins the offer is still standing for the 1.8 BTC bounty. i gotta say tough that birdy should get a portion of that anyway because he really tried hard to help me up til now.

give me a few hours, i will give you guys an update later/tomorrow.

[jackjack]

TheD1ceMan sent me his wallet.dat
But it's not a wallet file, it only has random(?) content
I find these words inside it though: CoTaskMemFree.ole32.dll, System.Transactions.Dll GetNotificationFactory, IL_STUB_COMtoCL, IL_STUB_CLRtoCOM, IL_STUB_PInvok, IL_STUB_ReversePInvok

[flatfly]

Here's what you can also try: Download the "Everything" search tool (pick the portable version called Everything-1.3.2.649b.zip) from http://www.voidtools.com/ and let it scan your C drive - this shouldn't take more than a minute or two, that tool is FAST and much more comprehensive than the default Windows search thing. Then search for all files wallet.dat. Do you find several? Look at the creation dates of those files to find the correct one. Do the same for your usb stick. Or you can send them to me, I can have a look too.

[jackjack]

Here's what you can also try: Download the "Everything" search tool (pick the portable version called Everything-1.3.2.649b.zip) from http://www.voidtools.com/ and let it scan your C drive - this shouldn't take more than a minute or two, that tool is FAST and much more comprehensive than the default Windows search thing. Then search for all files wallet.dat. Do you find several? Look at the creation dates of those files to find the correct one. Do the same for your usb stick. Or you can send them to me, I can have a look too.

Closed-source?

[Birdy]

Well, we figured out what happened:

He erased/reinstalled Bitcoin (alongside other programs) on his computer, because he thought that the wallet/coins are safe on the USB stick (only the client is on the stick, not the blockchain or wallet data).
The wallet.dat is from a recovery program and couldn't be fully recovered.
There is still a (small :/) chance that the private key is intact in there.
Or is there maybe another backup option untried? some autobackup from windows maybe?

[Knecke]

thats my nightmare  

he shouldnt make to much on the hdd, better start with a livecd and try to recover the data.

[flatfly]

Why do most newbies continue to use Qt when much safer alternatives are available?

Research the Electrum deterministic lightweight client, for instance. It's specifically designed to
protect you against this kind of data loss risk, which has caused MUCH more financial losses to
non-technical users than hacking, by the way.

[Birdy]

Why do most newbies continue to use Qt when much safer alternatives are available?

Because it's the standard client :/
So it's most likely the first one you find and there is no warning on bitcoin.org that this isn't the one you should choose.

[maz]

If you havnt recovered it by Tuesday, give me a PM when I'm back at work and i'll take you through a few things we could try.

[DannyHamilton]

Why do most newbies continue to use Qt when much safer alternatives are available?

Because it's the standard client :/
So it's most likely the first one you find and there is no warning on bitcoin.org that this isn't the one you should choose.

Standard client?  What international standards organization has announced a standardized client?  ISO?  IEEE?

As far as I know there is no "standard" or "official" client.

Bitcoin-Qt is the first client created, and it is generally used as a protocol reference.

Calling it "standard" or "official" simply perpetuates the cycle of confusing others.

[Chrithu]

That is truely a sad story to read.

And I have to agree, unless you're techsavy the bitcoin-qt wallet isn't the best one to use. On the other hand: Bitcoin-qt has a "secure wallet" function one should use to save his wallet to a USB drive. After encrypting it of course. The rationale is: encryption protects from theft (if your password is strong [the longer the better, use letters, numbers AND ]) and the securing on a USB drive protects you from data loss.

I can't provide any help to the case beyond what was said already: Don't do anything more with that harddisk, the more writing is done on it the worse the chances of succesfully recovering that lost data. Use unix-livecds to boot and try recovery from there, I can't suggest any good ones though since I havent' had to use such techniques in years. Trust me you learn quickly from such incidents. If that doesn't work there's allways the option to send it in to recovery labs but those take shitloads of money, probably more than the 30 coins are worth.

[Lastro]

what film was it~?

Some of you are very cruel.

[Lastro]

Well, we figured out what happened:

He erased/reinstalled Bitcoin (alongside other programs) on his computer, because he thought that the wallet/coins are safe on the USB stick (only the client is on the stick, not the blockchain or wallet data).
The wallet.dat is from a recovery program and couldn't be fully recovered.
There is still a (small :/) chance that the private key is intact in there.
Or is there maybe another backup option untried? some autobackup from windows maybe?

I have used recovery programs before and they work. I am not sure what O/S he is using, but even if he copied over the wallet.dat file in the appdata folder, it can still be recovered. Easy Data Drive Recovery is what I used. I could walk the OP through it on a conference call. Another poster was absolutely right - avoid using that drive - if the file has been deleted than that block is open to be written on.

[teamtarp]

so sad to hear this. hope you can recover it. good luck!

[TheD1ceMan]

This is a job for a recovery expert. The more you faff with the system installing new programs etc, the more you risk over writing the wallet.dat from the drive. There may be an oppertunity for a recovery expert to retrieve the file using Volume Shadow Copies.

If you are UK based I could help, otherwise it would be a local data recovery company.

All the best mate

thanks man. unfortunately shadow copies are not an option. because i use windows 8 and guess what- no shadow copies in windows 8. vista, XP and windows 7 used them but no, windows 8 doesn't

[TheD1ceMan]

Why do most newbies continue to use Qt when much safer alternatives are available?

Because it's the standard client :/
So it's most likely the first one you find and there is no warning on bitcoin.org that this isn't the one you should choose.

exactly. that's why i downloaded it. but i was too stupid to read into other stuff as well. so i have to take the biggst part of the blame.
i was thinking about creating a paper wallet but i didn't because i was to busy to read into it. if only i could turn back time....

[TheD1ceMan]

If you havnt recovered it by Tuesday, give me a PM when I'm back at work and i'll take you through a few things we could try.

hi maz. thanks a lot, will do!
i am truly amazed how people take time out of their busy schedule to help me. that's why i belived (and still believe) in the BTC system in the first place.
sure, i also invested bevause i wanted to have the opportunity to help my loved ones later when they are worth a lot. i was planning in giving one BTC to each of my familiy members. i live in a wealthy country but still,parts of my family have suffered hard. my uncle died last year with just 50yrs from a brain tumour and left his family nothing, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time (right after her brother, my uncle) died and so on. i just wanted to make all our lives a little bit easier.
the fact that this opportunity might has vanished hurts me more than lossing a couple of thousand dollars of the current value. knowing that i won't be able to buy back in..

i am not saving anything on my pc at the moment, nor downloading anything in order to not cause any more damage. and i am reading everything there is about recovery. i haven't abandoned hope yet, even tough it is not easy. but i guess it's worth to fight for my original cause of helping my family i guess.

sorry for being a bit emotional here guys, just needed to get that off my chest. again, you are all very helpful and i appreciate it a lot!

[TheD1ceMan]

Well, we figured out what happened:

He erased/reinstalled Bitcoin (alongside other programs) on his computer, because he thought that the wallet/coins are safe on the USB stick (only the client is on the stick, not the blockchain or wallet data).
The wallet.dat is from a recovery program and couldn't be fully recovered.
There is still a (small :/) chance that the private key is intact in there.
Or is there maybe another backup option untried? some autobackup from windows maybe?

I have used recovery programs before and they work. I am not sure what O/S he is using, but even if he copied over the wallet.dat file in the appdata folder, it can still be recovered. Easy Data Drive Recovery is what I used. I could walk the OP through it on a conference call. Another poster was absolutely right - avoid using that drive - if the file has been deleted than that block is open to be written on.

i am using windows 8, unfortunately. there's no shadow copies and things like that. the other thing is that it took me 1.5 weeks before i discovered something was wrong, that's why most of the data has already been overwritten.
i tried like 10 different recovery programs, they all came up with the same result.

however, i found other fileswuth names like "rev0043.dat". out of those approx. 50 files i was able to recover about 7. i am holding on to these hoping they might be good for something. but the wallet.dat definately seems to be f-up..

[maz]

Ok so it's windows 8 without VSC. Did you enable the file history feature by any chance? This link will explain how to check that http://www.howtogeek.com/74623/how-to-use-the-new-file-history-feature-in-windows-8/