Sent bitcoin to while it before it was installed completely

[Sigs13]

I had bitcouns in an account in Coinbase. I decided to install bitcoin core on my laptop;  turns out I didn't have as much free space as I thought, so I aborted the installation after waiting two days for it to complete. But during that two days I sent the bitcoin from coinbase to the address of the new wallet (that wasn't finished installing).  I can see the transaction with Blockchain explorer, and the money is sitting there at the address to where I sent it. Will it sit there forever?  Or will it eventually bounce back to Coinbase? Or if I install  bitcoin core on a larger computer, will I get access to it?

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[Foxpup]

Or if I install  bitcoin core on a larger computer, will I get access to it?

Yes. Just copy the wallet.dat file to the new installation. (It would also be highly advisable to back up this file if you haven't already, for obvious reasons.)

[Sigs13]

And if that file is gone...  are the bitcoins unrecoverable?   

[HeRetiK]

And if that file is gone...  are the bitcoins unrecoverable?   

Yes. Did you have a Windows backup on schedule? Otherwise here's a list of file recovery software:

https://www.lifewire.com/free-data-recovery-software-tools-2622893

If I remember correctly Recuva was quite OK, but it's been a while since the last time that I had to recover files.

[cr1776]

And if that file is gone...  are the bitcoins unrecoverable?  

If that file is gone, you have no backup of it, you can't use software (or hardware) to recover it from your disk, and you didn't export and save the private keys anywhere else, then in all likelihood the bitcoins are unrecoverable.

If you did delete it without a backup, stop using your computer right away so as to avoid increasing the chance you overwrite that portion of the disk that store the file. Then use the software mentioned above search for the wallet.dat file.  You will want to install this software on a different disk and boot from that disk.

As above, is this Windows?  Mac?  If Mac, was Time Machine active?  If Windows, see the poster above.

[Sigs13]

Thank you for your help everyone-- I used easeUS data recovery tool-- and found two versions of wallet.dat, one taking up 96 mb and the other 128 mb.  I assume the larger is the one to use, but I'll check the time each was created and use the newest version.

Does anyone know how to get that in the new installation? Will it ask for it during the install, or does anyone know the directory on the computer where it is usually installed?  I could create the folders and put it in that directory-- does that sound reasonable?

I appreciate the help-  it amounts to a few hundred dollars, probably a little more after the recent run-up.

[HCP]

If you recover the wallet.dat, then you simply need to reinstall Bitcoin Core... it will give you the option of setting the "datadir" run it for the first time... Once you know where the "datadir" is (you can also look in "Help -> Debug Window -> Information"), you can simply shut down Bitcoin Core, then replace the newly created wallet.dat in the datadir with the one you have recovered.

NOTE: It will still be using the wallet password that you originally set for it (if any).