Help! Trying to secure my wallet I think I lost my Bitcoins :-(

[alexkeaton]

Hi and thanks A LOT in advance if you can provide any help (although I believe it is too late for me :-().

Here is the situation. I had some Bitcoins (almost 25) on MyBitcoin.com and I (may be stupidly) decided to send them to my computer.

So, I downloaded the Bitcoin app (I'm on a Mac by the way, in case it is important), and opened it in order to get my address (Let's say for simplicity's sake "Address1"). I then sent the Bitcoins from MyBitcoin.com to "Address1".

Then I decided (even more stupidly I guess) to secure my wallet following these steps (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Securing_your_wallet). Which I followed to the letter. I created the encrypted 256-bit image, moved everything from ~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/ to the image and then created the Symlink.
BUT when I opened the Bitcoin app, my "Address1" was GONE and instead I had "Address2"!!! :-(

So what do you think? Am I F**kd? Or is there any (magical) way to get my Bitcoins back home???

At the moment I just left my computer and the Bitcoin app opened just in case...

ANY suggestion would be greatly appreciated :-)

[1715382031]

1715382031

[virtualcodewarrior]

If you still have your old wallet.dat file inside of your encrypted image, you should be able to get back your coins.

Are you sure the symlink is correct. It sounds to me that bitcoin created a new wallet.dat file, possibly because it could not find the old one.

[SgtSpike]

Your bitcoin address changes every time you receive or send coins with the application.  Since you received coins to the first address, it changed to your second address.

You need to wait for the blockchain to finish downloading to see your coins.  It should be around 133k blocks.

[virtualcodewarrior]

Your bitcoin address changes every time you receive or send coins with the application.  Since you received coins to the first address, it changed to your second address.

You need to wait for the blockchain to finish downloading to see your coins.  It should be around 133k blocks.

SgtSpike: I forgot about that possibility.

alexkeaton: maybe you should check your address book in the bitcoin application and check if you see your old address in there.

[Infinity1]

Use Time Machine on the Mac.

[alexkeaton]

If you still have your old wallet.dat file inside of your encrypted image, you should be able to get back your coins.

Are you sure the symlink is correct. It sounds to me that bitcoin created a new wallet.dat file, possibly because it could not find the old one.

THANKS for being the voice of reason!!!!

YES, that was more or less the case. The thing that happened is, and do not ask me why or how, that the bitcoin app had created a whole new Bitcoin folder OVER my original Bitcoin folder!
In other words, I had previously my original Bitcoin folder in "/Volumes/Bitcoin" and therefore my wallet.dat in "/Volumes/Bitcoin/wallet.dat".
But then somehow it became just "/Volumes" and my wallet.dat was "/Volumes/wallet.dat" with all the other files normally included in the Bitcoin folder... plus my old original Bitcoin folder (with my original wallet.dat :-D)!

And yesterday night I guess I was so stressed out over what I thought would be the sure lost of my 25 Bitcoins (that I had just bought on MtGox by the way) that I totally missed that.

So now I just put back my original folder in its place and everything is A-OK.

Thanks a LOT for all your help!!!! :-P