Wallet.dat not recognized format

[benjamin07]

Hi,

I have an old walleet.dat i think created back in the days of wallet 0.16.0

I downloaded bitcoin core 0.21.0 and waited for it to fully synchronize

I then went to the Bitcoin roaming file and put the wallet.dat in there: when i load the Client it does not see the wallet.

I go to Program Files\Bitcoin <-this is the 64 bits wallet, thre is nothing in the x86 folder

I try: bitcoin-qt.exe -rescan  <- same result, wallet not loaded
I try: bitcoin-qt.exe -wallet wallet.dat <- i get an error dialog box saying format not recognized

What am I doing wrong?

[edit] When i downloaded 0.21.0 i quickly clicked on stuff and i think i told it to remember only the last 2 GB of data so mayne now the wallet is behind the available blockchain info?

[hugeblack]

it is better to know your wallet balance before do your Full sync. I dont know if listreceivedbyaddress works without full Sync.

If you do not care about privacy, you can try the following steps:

 - Go to pywallet ---> https://github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet
 - add your wallet.dat in that directory
 - use this code (./pywallet.py --dumpwallet  --datadir=. --passphrase=PASSPHRASE)
 - if it works enter this code (./pywallet.py --dumpwallet --dumpwithbalance --datadir=. --passphrase=PASSPHRASE)

Now you will be directed to a file, search for the private key (Dont shear it) and the balance, after that you can use electrum wallet to spend that coins.

Source --> https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transferring_coins_from_Bitcoin-Qt_to_Electrum

[BitMaxz]

Are you sure that the wallet.dat is generated from the Bitcoin core? Or might on a different wallet like Stratis-qt?
I tried to search on Google about the error that you get "wallet.dat format not recognized" it seems no one experienced this before except for those who use Stratis-qt.

But if you are sure that it is from bitcoin core then try this below.

What I think is manually set the data directory of your bitcoin core wallet. So start on making a new folder on C drive sample c:\BitcoinData then paste the wallet.dat inside the folder.

Now set the bitcoin-qt shortcut with this below at the end.

Code:

-datadir=c:\BitcoinData

Source: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Data_directory

Looks like this


Then reopen the bitcoin core wallet. Let's hope it will recognize but if not your last hope is to try pywallet as suggested above.

[benjamin07]

Hi All

Thanks for your replies. It worked as follows:
1. I closed the bitcoin wallet
2. I reopened it again, it said i need to rescan and download the full blockchain again
3. It did not do that, it just did a count down in the launch dialog and then when it started the coins were there

Thanks