Corrupt wallet.dat, salvage not working, using pywallet.py - Please help :)

[sigtexx]

Hi all,

Thanks in advance for any assistance. I'm relatively new to Bitcoin, fairly technically adept, however not very familiar with using things other than Windows.

As per subject, I've managed to corrupt my wallet.dat (idiot move, backed it up but never stored it off my PC). Bitcoin Core won't salvage it, so I've resorted to researching and using pywallet.py to try and recover it.

All has gone fairly swimmingly up until now. I have a small error which says decryption may be slow, however I never encrypted my wallet anyway, so I can't see that being an issue.

Here's the command I'm using in cmd, followed by the return I'm getting:

C:\Users\jackg>C:\Users\jackg\Downloads\pywallet-master\pywallet-master\pywallet.py --datadir=K:\Bitcoin --recover --recov_size=2000000 --recov_device=K:\Bitcoin --recov_outputdir=C:\Users\jackg\Desktop

Starting recovery.
Can't open K:\Bitcoin, check the path or try as root
   Error: (13, 'Permission denied')

Please help! It's annoying to be falling down at the last hurdle.

Really, really could do with recovering my private keys.

[1713485020]

1713485020

[1713485020]

1713485020

[achow101]

Make sure that the path K:\Bitcoin exists and that your user is allowed to read and write to it. The error is very clear, you did not have the permission to access it.

[sigtexx]

Make sure that the path K:\Bitcoin exists and that your user is allowed to read and write to it. The error is very clear, you did not have the permission to access it.

Hiya, thanks for your help. I've checked this, my user most certainly does have full control rights to K:\Bitcoin, which definitely exists.

[elbandi]

recov_device paramter sould be a device. in linux /dev/sda or something, in windows maybe "K:"

[morbius55]

Check out my recent thread in technical support.

[kahc]

Hi all,

Thanks in advance for any assistance. I'm relatively new to Bitcoin, fairly technically adept, however not very familiar with using things other than Windows.

As per subject, I've managed to corrupt my wallet.dat (idiot move, backed it up but never stored it off my PC). Bitcoin Core won't salvage it, so I've resorted to researching and using pywallet.py to try and recover it.

All has gone fairly swimmingly up until now. I have a small error which says decryption may be slow, however I never encrypted my wallet anyway, so I can't see that being an issue.

Here's the command I'm using in cmd, followed by the return I'm getting:

C:\Users\jackg>C:\Users\jackg\Downloads\pywallet-master\pywallet-master\pywallet.py --datadir=K:\Bitcoin --recover --recov_size=2000000 --recov_device=K:\Bitcoin --recov_outputdir=C:\Users\jackg\Desktop

Starting recovery.
Can't open K:\Bitcoin, check the path or try as root
   Error: (13, 'Permission denied')

Please help! It's annoying to be falling down at the last hurdle.

Really, really could do with recovering my private keys.

Have you tried to run cmd as "Run as administrator"?

[HCP]

Here's the command I'm using in cmd, followed by the return I'm getting:

C:\Users\jackg>C:\Users\jackg\Downloads\pywallet-master\pywallet-master\pywallet.py --datadir=K:\Bitcoin --recover --recov_size=2000000 --recov_device=K:\Bitcoin --recov_outputdir=C:\Users\jackg\Desktop

Starting recovery.
Can't open K:\Bitcoin, check the path or try as root
   Error: (13, 'Permission denied')

recov_device paramter sould be a device. in linux /dev/sda or something, in windows maybe "K:"

It is most likely this... pywallet doesn't let you scan a directory or file... you need to give it a device identifier and it scan the device... my suggestion is to get a smallish usb stick (prefer 1 GB or less), to minimise the "scanning time".... wipe/format it and then put ONLY your wallet.dat on the usb stick.

Let's pretend that Windows has mounted your 1GB usb stick as the drive letter "X"... (replace "X" with whatever drive letter your system uses for the usb stick)... your command should be:

Code:

C:\Users\jackg\Downloads\pywallet-master\pywallet-master\pywallet.py --recover --recov_size=1Gio --recov_device=X: --recov_outputdir=C:\Users\jackg\Desktop

NOTE: --recov_size should equal the size of the usb stick... 8GB stick = 8Gio, 4GB stick = 4Gio... I have no idea why the pywallet author choose this format?!??

[sigtexx]

Here's the command I'm using in cmd, followed by the return I'm getting:

C:\Users\jackg>C:\Users\jackg\Downloads\pywallet-master\pywallet-master\pywallet.py --datadir=K:\Bitcoin --recover --recov_size=2000000 --recov_device=K:\Bitcoin --recov_outputdir=C:\Users\jackg\Desktop

Starting recovery.
Can't open K:\Bitcoin, check the path or try as root
   Error: (13, 'Permission denied')

recov_device paramter sould be a device. in linux /dev/sda or something, in windows maybe "K:"

It is most likely this... pywallet doesn't let you scan a directory or file... you need to give it a device identifier and it scan the device... my suggestion is to get a smallish usb stick (prefer 1 GB or less), to minimise the "scanning time".... wipe/format it and then put ONLY your wallet.dat on the usb stick.

Let's pretend that Windows has mounted your 1GB usb stick as the drive letter "X"... (replace "X" with whatever drive letter your system uses for the usb stick)... your command should be:

Code:

C:\Users\jackg\Downloads\pywallet-master\pywallet-master\pywallet.py --recover --recov_size=1Gio --recov_device=X: --recov_outputdir=C:\Users\jackg\Desktop

NOTE: --recov_size should equal the size of the usb stick... 8GB stick = 8Gio, 4GB stick = 4Gio... I have no idea why the pywallet author choose this format?!??

Hi HCP,

I figured this out with the help of the thread morbius55 pointed me towards - I didn't use the 'cd' command in cmd to set the directory I was running pywallet from.

I've managed to get pywallet to scan, however it finds 0 recoverable keys. Sigh.

I'm happy to share my wallet with anyone if they want to try and extract something from it? I've given up now, so as far as I'm concerned it's a last ditch effort. If anyone does find something, I'll be more than willing to send them some coin.

[sigtexx]

Bad news. I've just spoken to some experts in data recovery and I've royally fucked it. Please close this thread

[HCP]

Sorry to hear that... to "close the thread", you'll need to click the "lock topic" option at the bottom of the page, just above the "quick reply" box... or you can edit the first post, click "additional options", select "lock this topic" and then "save".