Reformatted hard drive, realized wallet file not in backed up bitcoin folder

[levitening]

So, my computer was BSODing regularly, so I decided it was time for a clean install of Windows 7. I backed up the "bitcoin" folder in Program Files, assuming my wallet was located in there...

With a fresh reinstall, I open up the bitcoin program, and viola. 0 BTC.

Any chance of recovering the wallet without spending large amounts of money? The wallet wasn't worth that much, but it does constitute a quarter of my investment, which means there is that much less chance of recovering what I put into GPUs.

[1714110253]

1714110253

[BitQuestr (BitCoinWorldMarket)]

I have heard a lot of people have had luck with http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm

Otherwise if you don't have another backup your wallet is a goner It hurts, I'm sorry for your loss..

[thinkweis]

Look for data recovery software. Also, I'm sure everyone wants to know how much you lost.

[levitening]

Considering my "investment" was two 5830s, you can do the math . I'll check into SpinRite, but it's not the end of the world.

[JBDive]

Considering my "investment" was two 5830s, you can do the math . I'll check into SpinRite, but it's not the end of the world.

Spinrite will not recover your data from a reformat, in fact it will likely make any recovery impossible!

Look for Data Recovery software. DO NOT keep working on that PC, each time it writes data to the HD your making it less likely you will recover anything.

You want to work with the drive in read only mode booting off a CD. There are several apps which may get you there. Look for Hiren's. Past that point I will be glad to help but we need to do it outside of chat and I will need some BTC ...

[KenJackson]

With a fresh reinstall, I open up the bitcoin program, and viola. 0 BTC.

This is a argument against bitcoin.  It would be bad enough investing in something like precious metals or rare coins that could be lost, destroyed or stolen.  But this is now the second story I've read about someone that lost money due to hard drive problems.

I'm still lurking and considering.  I'm rooting for bitcoin, but stuff like this scares me.

BTW, both of these stories provide good arguments to use a more secure operating system than Windows.  Like what?  Almost anything available is more secure than Windows.  Ubuntu Linux, Fedora Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, PC-BSD or soon OpenIndiana (or maybe someday even Haiku).

[casascius]

Did you do a full erase of the drive, or reinstall something on top of it? Hope not.

Bitcoins may be recoverable and I know how.

Boot another drive, attach the lost Bitcoin drive as secondary. Download winhex. Open the raw drive (press F9, must run winhex as administrator).  Search entire drive for this byte sequence

01 03 6b 65 79 41 04

Let me know if you find it. If so, bitcoins may be safe.

[bitcon]

someone needs to make a built in pop-up warning in the bitcoin applications telling ppl to backup their wallet.dat in two different locations everytime the program executes.

[Dubs420]

I use MozyHome free 2GB for my offsite backup plan this way if you ever lose a hard drive or completely melt a system you have a backup still.

[JBDive]

I use MozyHome free 2GB for my offsite backup plan this way if you ever lose a hard drive or completely melt a system you have a backup still.

Really, ever tested that restore....

[TripHammer]

If you are using an offsite/cloud backup plan make sure that you encrypt the file well before you transfer it!

[nipsy]

or soon OpenIndiana

*laugh*  Are people still waiting for the corpse of OpenSolaris to wake up from the dead and start doing something again?  I like ZFS and all, but using something that is so marginalized at this point seems like a "Bad Idea"™.  I'm not referring to bitcoind specifically.  I just meant as far as operating systems go.

I'd also like to add OpenBSD to your list.  Hell, I'm not even sure bitcoind works on OpenBSD.  From what little searching I just did, it seems like it doesn't yet.  That seems like an oversight since it's always billed as one of the most secure operating systems in existence, out of the box anyway.  Having said that, encfs under FUSE in any Linux still seems like the best way to go for now until the wallet natively supports encrypted private keys.  And even then, it would probably be a good thing to keep it on some kind of encrypted file system.

[Patheos]

When making your backups of bitcoin, the wallet.dat file is located in the user file, (actual users name), AppData, Roaming, Bitcoin folder.

[PandaMiner]

When making your backups of bitcoin, the wallet.dat file is located in the user file, (actual users name), AppData, Roaming, Bitcoin folder.

Yeah. Imagine upgrading your client and it erasing your wallet? That doesn't happen, but kinda scary thought.

Get your encrypted wallet data file in the cloud, (I love how that's so mainstream now. To the cloud!) Or at least OFF your computer in some form or fashion. 

Also, have TWO "wallets," one for every day use, and one for savings. I do it. And I use boot-from-usb key to do it. And also saved encrypted wallet off the usb key. I put a copy on my web server, on my 8MB SanDisk SD card, lol, and I printed it out in hex. (geek)

[KenJackson]

And also saved encrypted wallet off the usb key. I put a copy on my web server, on my 8MB SanDisk SD card, lol, and I printed it out in hex. (geek)

It does seem wise to back it up multiple place frequently.
Having a cron job do it would also seem wise.

[Gabi]

When making your backups of bitcoin, the wallet.dat file is located in the user file, (actual users name), AppData, Roaming, Bitcoin folder.

Yeah, it's fascinating, the bitcoin client automatically put the wallet.dat very well hidden somewhere in the computer without even telling it to you

And then we wonder why bitcoin is not widespread used?

[Bert]

Maybe add a backup option in the client. You click on backup and it prompts you with which drive do you want to save the wallet.dat as wallet-yyyymmddhhmmss.dat ?
With big red warnings that the backup file is not encrypted,  the same care must be taken with it as with a real life wallet full of cash. And that if you have no backups and your hard drive dies, you have lost your wallet, with little chance of recovering it.

Instead of people magically knowing where to go to find their current wallet.dat file.
Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Bitcoin
(AKA)       %APPDATA%\Bitcoin
Mac      : ~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin
Unix      : ~/.bitcoin

[PandaMiner]

Maybe add a backup option in the client. You click on backup and it prompts you with which drive do you want to save the wallet.dat as wallet-yyyymmddhhmmss.dat ?

+1

[Bitcoinreminder.com]

Maybe add a backup option in the client. You click on backup and it prompts you with which drive do you want to save the wallet.dat as wallet-yyyymmddhhmmss.dat ?

+1

+2

[BkkCoins]

When making your backups of bitcoin, the wallet.dat file is located in the user file, (actual users name), AppData, Roaming, Bitcoin folder.

Yeah, it's fascinating, the bitcoin client automatically put the wallet.dat very well hidden somewhere in the computer without even telling it to you

And then we wonder why bitcoin is not widespread used?

Many (or most) programs put their data in that area. The idea is that when you do backups you are supposed to backup the whole AppData folder. That way you get all the various data at once and don't have to go searching through places all over the system to get it. It doesn't help much if you don't realize that though.

Another program that may help you find it is TestDisk. But you do need to stop using the disk right away as every disk write potentially is overwriting the sector it could be lingering in.

[Bert]

Maybe add a backup option in the client. You click on backup and it prompts you with which drive do you want to save the wallet.dat as wallet-yyyymmddhhmmss.dat ?

+1

+2

I added a request for this, not sure if it will be picked up by a developer, but no harm in trying
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/370

[PandaMiner]

The wallet.data file has a lot of info in it... number of blocks, addresses... what we need is the Balance! Where do you get that from? If you find a partial file, which part is paramount?

[BkkCoins]

What you really need is the private key - but I'm not familiar with the format and how to find that in the file. The important thing is to save any part of the file you find because later you may get help with extracting the key. Without they key, having addresses, balance or anything else won't matter - you cannot do anything with the money without the key.

[wacked]

Simply backup your wallet.dat before you start accepting payments, and have it in more than one remote location. If you lose a drive on your system you can recover the wallet.dat you backed up at any one of your other numerous locations, restore it, and then after downloading the block chain to that wallet you have your money.

Losing a hard drive can occur at anytime, be it you lose your wallet.dat or you lose your photos or financial data etc.
Backup your data and store it offsite if it's important to you.

Waiting until after the fact is always the worst case.

With a fresh reinstall, I open up the bitcoin program, and viola. 0 BTC.

This is a argument against bitcoin.  It would be bad enough investing in something like precious metals or rare coins that could be lost, destroyed or stolen.  But this is now the second story I've read about someone that lost money due to hard drive problems.

I'm still lurking and considering.  I'm rooting for bitcoin, but stuff like this scares me.

BTW, both of these stories provide good arguments to use a more secure operating system than Windows.  Like what?  Almost anything available is more secure than Windows.  Ubuntu Linux, Fedora Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, PC-BSD or soon OpenIndiana (or maybe someday even Haiku).

[casascius]

What you really need is the private key - but I'm not familiar with the format and how to find that in the file. The important thing is to save any part of the file you find because later you may get help with extracting the key. Without they key, having addresses, balance or anything else won't matter - you cannot do anything with the money without the key.

Wallet extraction method by casascius

Search hard drive for bytes: 01 03 6b 65 79 41 04

Within each sector containing this sequence or adjacent to one that does:

Find the hex bytes 04 20.  The thirty two bytes following 04 20 is likely a private key. A wallet typically has 100 to 200 of them. Contact me in PM if you are able to recover any.

[Gabi]

The client require a much better way to manage the wallet.

Why it is auto-created the first time i start bitcoin? It should allow us to create the wallet.dat file, choose where we want to place it. Allow us then to open another one for example. Maybe a file NOT named wallet.dat too?

[makomk]

Alternatively, for the slightly less manual version of what casascius is suggesting, I've written a little Linux tool to scan disks for private keys using roughly this method and recover them to a new wallet.dat that can be loaded up in the Bitcoin client.