Doubt about storing BTCs in laptop

[bryant.coleman]

Suppose I am storing some 10-15 BTCs in my laptop (not in any online wallets). What will happen if the system hard disk crashes or if I need to re-install Windows? Will I lose these BTCs for ever?

[Birdy]

Unless you have a backup and are not able to restore the files, yes they are gone.
You don't store the coin itself, but the keys to the coins.

So do yourself a favour and make a backup of the private keys. ^^

If you want to store those coins for a longer time, I recommend storing them in paper wallets or cold storage.
Coins on your laptop are as secure as your laptop.

[bryant.coleman]

Unless you have a backup and are not able to restore the files, yes they are gone.
You don't store the coin itself, but the keys to the coins.

Thanks for the reply. I have one more doubt. If we are storing these backup files in our email, can someone steal them by hacking in to our email account?

[Birdy]

Thanks for the reply. I have one more doubt. If we are storing these backup files in our email, can someone steal them by hacking in to our email account?

He can indeed, if you want to store it online you better have it encrypted with a good password (and make sure you don't forget the password).
Everyone who has the private key to an address can access the coins on it.

[gigamike]

you can use http://www.aescrypt.com/ to encrypt your wallet.dat/multibit.wallet/textfile private key upon saving it to email or chrome drive etc.

[Deafboy]

And if using Bitcoin-qt wallet, one backup is not enough! You have to backup after every 100 transactions. This will hopefully be solved soon by BIP32

[marcovaldo]

That's like a CC code. If you know the numbers, expiration date, owner of the CB, you can use it online and pay for everything. It is the same with bitcoins and backup: if you keep it somewhere, it can be used by anyone, so keep it in a safe place, but do not lose it.