Electrum and wallet recovery

[ExodusOatmeal]

Hello all,

I'm trying to recover my wallet.dat from 2011. It looks like I used an old version of Electrum (version 1.5.6).
The instructions to install a wallet were:

    Download and install ActivePython
    Open Command Prompt
    Type "pypm install electrum"

The version of python I used was 2.7.


My question is, If I were to install the latest version of Electrum...would I be able to recover my wallet.dat file somehow?

[1714011951]

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[1714011951]

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[signalbitbot]

just use the private key, you had to save it during the installation.

[AdolfinWolf]

Hello all,

I'm trying to recover my wallet.dat from 2011. It looks like I used an old version of Electrum (version 1.5.6).
The instructions to install a wallet were:

    Download and install ActivePython
    Open Command Prompt
    Type "pypm install electrum"

The version of python I used was 2.7.


My question is, If I were to install the latest version of Electrum...would I be able to recover my wallet.dat file somehow?

No, the current version of Electrum doesn't support the use of wallet.dat(SsS) (I'm not sure if it ever did anyway?). You'll need to import it in something like bitcoin Core, and see if you can unlock it that way.

https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/3457

just use the private key, you had to save it during the installation.

No, you simply had to save the wallet.dat  + remember the corresponding password. the private keys are all listed in there.
^With a bitcoin core wallet this was.

(It would've been a hassle to store 100's of private keys + the private keys of change adresses etc.)


This might help you, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=325364.0, although it looks even more outdated.

[jackg]

Whys everyone going on about electrum? The wallet.dat will be from bitcoin core. Import the private keys into bitcoin-qt downloadable from bitcoin-qt.org instead.

It'll take a while to sync so alternatively you could use electrum for a faster sync.

Your key should begin with a K, L or a 5 if it's in WIF format. There are other formats I'm not sure they existed then. What is the initial character in the key?

You might also be able to just use the same wallet.dat as I'm not sure there were even password protection at that point and not the bip38/aes encryption. To give help for this, what operating system are you running?

[importantnews001]

Discover your 12 words, and you wallet will be retrievable easy

[AdolfinWolf]

Discover your 12 words, and you wallet will be retrievable easy

There probably wasn't such thing as a seed back then, (or he chose not to use it). he doesn't have "the 12 words", but rather a file where all of his adresses + corresponding private keys are stored.

[ExodusOatmeal]

I'm reading everyone's advice here. I found a folder with the following folders within it:

Cipher, Hash, Protocol, PublicKey, Random, SelfTest, Signature, Util.

All files within those folders end in ".py or .pyd or .pyc" (which I'm guessing are Python based)

Any ideas on how to proceed?

[HCP]

I'm reading everyone's advice here. I found a folder with the following folders within it:
Cipher, Hash, Protocol, PublicKey, Random, SelfTest, Signature, Util.
All files within those folders end in ".py or .pyd or .pyc" (which I'm guessing are Python based)

Where did you find this folder? and what was it called? While it looks like it it possibly related to crypto, it doesn't look like anything in the Electrum source code structure/history that I can find?

Is the file actually called "wallet.dat" or are you just using the term to mean "wallet file"? If it is called wallet.dat, chances are that it is NOT an Electrum wallet file.

If it isn't called wallet.dat, what is it called? and are you 100% certain this is an Electrum wallet file or are you guessing/assuming it is? If you are certain it is an Electrum wallet file, if you open (a copy of) the file in a text editor, do you see anything human readable?

[jackg]

I'm reading everyone's advice here. I found a folder with the following folders within it:
Cipher, Hash, Protocol, PublicKey, Random, SelfTest, Signature, Util.
All files within those folders end in ".py or .pyd or .pyc" (which I'm guessing are Python based)

Where did you find this folder? and what was it called? While it looks like it it possibly related to crypto, it doesn't look like anything in the Electrum source code structure/history that I can find?

Is the file actually called "wallet.dat" or are you just using the term to mean "wallet file"? If it is called wallet.dat, chances are that it is NOT an Electrum wallet file.

If it isn't called wallet.dat, what is it called? and are you 100% certain this is an Electrum wallet file or are you guessing/assuming it is? If you are certain it is an Electrum wallet file, if you open (a copy of) the file in a text editor, do you see anything human readable?

I'm 100% certain it isn't electrum as it's from 2011 and electrum didn't come until about 2015...

It has to be bitcoin core, I don't think there were many other clients at this point... .

Wow! Didn't know they went further back than that as an spv client. Is there a way to find the old/non HD version of the wallet?

[TryNinja]

I'm 100% certain it isn't electrum as it's from 2011 and electrum didn't come until about 2015...

It has to be bitcoin core, I don't think there were many other clients at this point...

That's not true. Electrum was created in 2011.

From Electrum's about page[1]:

"Electrum was created by Thomas Voegtlin in November 2011."
[1] https://electrum.org/#about