Corrupted encrypted wallet.dat

[shitlauk]

Hi!

I have an old wallet.dat file from 2011 which was recovered from a formated partition. The wallet is probably fully or partially overwritten. The wallet is encrypted, but I remember the password.

-salvagewallet in bitcoin qt does not work.

When putting the wallet.dat on a usb drive and running pywallet.py --datadir=C:\Users\s_s--\Desktop\pywallet-master --recover --recov_device=D: --recov_size 8Gio --recov_outputdir=C:\Recov, it searches the drive but finds no wallets or keys.

Is there any chance at all to recover the bitcoins on it or is it impossible? If possible, what should I do to try to recover it? It's 10 bitcoins in the wallet, so I thought it could be worth giving it a try.

[1715001031]

1715001031

[1715001031]

1715001031

[jackg]

Hi!

I have an old wallet.dat file from 2011 which was recovered from a formated partition. The wallet is probably fully or partially overwritten. The wallet is encrypted, but I remember the password.

-salvagewallet in bitcoin qt does not work.

When putting the wallet.dat on a usb drive and running pywallet.py --datadir=C:\Users\s_s--\Desktop\pywallet-master --recover --recov_device=D: --recov_size 8Gio --recov_outputdir=C:\Recov, it searches the drive but finds no wallets or keys.

Is there any chance at all to recover the bitcoins on it or is it impossible? If possible, what should I do to try to recover it? It's 10 bitcoins in the wallet, so I thought it could be worth giving it a try.

You could probably look for tools online that'll help you decrypt the document.
I'm not sure Bitcoin core will do that as it's not a full data file (as some data is missing).

[shitlauk]

What do you mean by decrypting the document? Isn't only the keys encrypted?

[jackg]

What do you mean by decrypting the document? Isn't only the keys encrypted?

Yes it is normally the keys that are encrypted.

Also, before doing that, you could try running -updatewallet as well as -salvagewallet although that probably won't work as it's just part of a file.

[achow101]

If the wallet.dat file is fully or partially overwritten, no amount of salvagewallet, pywallet, or any other recovery tool is going to help. The BDB file format is probably corrupted so most tools won't be able to open it. The data is gone; you can't get it back. The only viable recovery strategy here is to find a backup of that wallet file and restore from the backup.

[Qunenin]

Do you have any idea how much is in there? I mean you can probably hire a company that can take care of that for you but they can be expensive and if you don't actually know if you're going to be recovering anything or not is it even possible? Do you have any way of knowing? I think before you go forward start spending money or before you put a vast amount of effort into it this is something you probably need to determine.

[shitlauk]

Yea, I guess the file is impossible to recover. I can't find any plain text like "mkey" or any hex values related to keys in hex editor.

I do have an old ruined harddrive that I consider hiring IBAS (professional data recovery company) to restore. It's a 50/50 chance if the coins are one that drive or not though, but I guess it's worth trying at this point even though it's expensive.

[kiddikoddi]

Hey is the wallet file incomplete or what? If it is try to recover with other recovery software like paragon because some software can recover it better than others.